


I Think I Love You Better Now

by HarleighJean1822



Series: Would It Be Enough... [3]
Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28816440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarleighJean1822/pseuds/HarleighJean1822
Summary: Life is pretty good for Randall.He's fresh out of med school and somehow qualified to care for patients by himself, Hamish is teaching and Temple Magus-ing, and they both look up when someone asks for 'Dr. Carpio-Duke.' (It's very confusing. Also, never ask Hamish for medical advice. Ever.)All their friends are happy, safe, and healthy as they do their own thing without ever wandering too far from home, and with any luck, they'll be adoptive parents soon. Very soon.But when their family expands in a wildly unexpected way and enemies, new and old, rear their ugly heads, how far will he have to go to keep what he's worked so hard to build? And, what's worse, what might he lose in the process?(Title is from "Lego House" by Ed Sheeran.)
Relationships: Alyssa Drake/Jack Morton, Lilith Bathory/Nicole Birch, Randall Carpio/Hamish Duke
Series: Would It Be Enough... [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051661
Comments: 28
Kudos: 30





	1. In which someone's having a baby, but it's not (sadly) Randall and Hamish...

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hi hi!
> 
> So... I told you there was a sequel. 
> 
> This is it. So far. 
> 
> Also, I have only a vague sense of how adoption works (as in, I googled a lot) or residency (as in, I very seriously planned to pursue medicine but I can't math and science so I googled that, too), so let's just go along this journey together and pretend it all makes sense. 
> 
> (Throws the first chapter and hides.)

Family medicine seemed like a great idea when it came time for Randall to pick a specialty. 

Out of all of his clinicals, he liked internal medicine and pediatrics the most. Neurology was cool but he wants to spend more time with patients than doing research or staring at scans all day, so that was an easy pass. 

Emergency medicine was awesome but grueling and his attending was so jaded from dealing with life-threatening injuries that he barely spent five minutes talking to a woman with severe stomach pain and if he’d listened to his nurse - rule number one to being a successful doctor, _always_ listen to the nurse -, he would have realized she has a history of ovarian cysts and one of them was about to burst. And Randall doesn’t ever want to be that kind of doctor, so emergency medicine was a hard pass. 

On that note, however, he got great feedback in his obstetrics/gynecology rotation, sadly because he did the bare minimum a good doctor should do - listen and err on the side of caution. But he’s a dude and he can’t relate to any of it, which seems like a big deal. Plus he passed Vera in the hall on his last day, apparently just leaving her appointment, and while he would never be her doctor, the experience was awkward enough that he could no longer entertain the thought of being an OBGYN doctor. 

But he _loved_ pediatrics. 

Sure, sick kids are are usually cranky and miserable and their parents are usually totally freaked out or already have a good guess at what’s going on, they’re still kids. They still ask lots of weird questions, you have to distract them or turn the exam into a game, it’s a blast. And sometimes sick kids are really snuggly, even with a guy they just met two minutes ago, or they're not that sick at all so they tell you all kinds of things. But it is also sort of draining, and there is a major potential sad factor in peds, and Randall can only take so much sadness. 

Hence, family medicine. He gets to treat adults and kids, possibly throughout every stage of their lives. Best of both worlds. 

But right now, at four o’clock on a Friday when he has dinner plans with his friends and husband, and he’s been waiting all day for what might be the most important phone call of his and Hamish’s life so far, and his entire day was spent with summer colds and swimmer’s ears and a particularly nasty cyst - it will forever be known as Mount Cystuvius and even though he made the nurses check him over to make sure none of the pus got on his clothes, he still smells it -, he is having a hard time psyching himself up for his last patient. 

Six year old Emily Fischer. He just saw her a couple weeks ago for her vaccinations - she was a _champ_ , Randall has never had a kid talk the entire time they were getting shots without so much as wincing - but today she has a fever, sore throat, and generally isn’t feeling well. 

He knocks and lets himself into the exam room where Emily is curled up on her mom’s lap, cheeks flushed and eyes glassy. She looks, as noted on the ‘Reason for visit’ box, miserable and feverish. 

“Hi, Mrs. Fischer,” he greets, grabbing the stool and taking a seat. “Hey, Emily. What’s going on?”

Emily shrugs and mumbles, “Don’t feel good.”

“Really?” He frowns. “That’s no fun. What’s going on?”

She shrugs and her mom explains, “Her temperature was a little high yesterday but I thought she just had a bug until she woke me up crying last night because her throat hurt so bad. I’ve been giving her Tylenol, but she never cries like that.”

It sounds like strep throat. 

“Did you look at her throat at all?” he asks, sliding over to the otoscope hanging on the wall.

“I did last night, but all I can tell you is it looked pretty red."

Strep throat. Poor kid. 

“Hey, Emily, can I take a look at your throat, please?”

She opens her mouth, big and wide and, yepp, definitely strep.

He turns off the light and says to Emily, “I’ll have to swab your throat to know for sure, but it looks like you’ve got strep throat. Now do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Good news,” she asks in a pitiful voice. 

“OK, the good news is all you have to do is take medicine and you’ll feel better in a few days,” he explains, sliding back to the cabinets for a cotton swab, “but the bad news is you’re going to have to eat a lot of ice cream or popsicles.”

She giggles but he pretends not to hear her as he continues, “I know, it’s horrible. I can’t believe they haven’t found a vegetable to make throats feel better, but it’ll have to be ice cream. Every night till your throat stops hurting and probably a few days after, just in case. You might even have to get a few kinds and rotate just to make it bearable.”

Mrs. Fischer heaves a sigh. “Emily, what are we going to do?”

“I like ice cream,” she insists, grinning. 

  
“Sure,” Randall says easily, “but do you like it enough to eat it every night?” 

“Yes!”

“Pssht, no way!” She nods, laughing, so he asks, “What’s your favorite kind?”

“Cake batter or brownie batter.”

Huh. Two desserts in one. Hamish would appreciate that. He’ll have to find some and see if he likes it beyond its practicality. Oh, maybe he can get a carton of each and then he’ll have _three_ desserts in one. Wait, three desserts in two. No, one, because it’s … but it’s two… does that still make it practical? Geez, how does Hamish live like this?

Mrs. Fischer gives her daughter’s braid a playful tug. “We’ll have to hide it from your dad, huh?”

“Mhmm!”

“I can write you a note,” Randall offers, grinning when they both laugh. “OK, Emily, ready for the swab? It might tickle but it won’t hurt, I promise.”

In lieu of answering, she opens her mouth and it’s honestly fifty-fifty on how much this process bothers anyone, including adults, but Emily just blinks a lot until he announces, “All done, thanks for not biting me!”

She flops onto her mom, giggling - she is officially his new favorite patient, who giggles after getting a cotton swab shoved down their throat? She’s future Knights material, definitely a Greybeard or Silverback -, and asks, “Do people really bite you?”

“Sometimes,” he lies - he’d rather that than a cyst exploding on him, to be honest, but Hamish might have a problem if he comes home with someone else’s teeth marks on him regardless of the context - and adds to her mom, “I’ll go test this, but even if it comes back negative, I’d like to get her on antibiotics while we wait for the culture for confirmation. Tylenol, soft foods, lots of fluids and ice cream, and she should be feeling better by Monday.”

Mrs. Fischer nods. “Sounds good.”

“Cool,” Randall turns back to Emily. “What’s your favorite color Jolly Rancher?”

“Blue!”  
  


Randall gets up and grabs the bag of candy out of the highest cabinet, digging around till he finds two blue ones. 

Emily smiles and takes them out of his hand. “Thank you!”

“No problem,” Randall replies brightly, offering the bag to her mom, who takes a green one. “I’ll be right back, just hang tight.”

“You got it, dude,” Emily says around her candy.

Where do kids come up with this stuff?

While he’s watching the second tick down on the clock on the wall, a light knock on the door precedes their office manager, Lo’s, bespectacled head popping in the doorway. “Dr. Carpio-Duke, your husband just left a message for you.”

Why is Hamish calling his… oh, probably because he left his phone in his office because he kept thinking it was buzzing and it wasn’t and, wait, Hamish called!

“Would you say he sounded excited?”

“He sounded like he always sounds.”

“OK, but did he say, ‘Is Randall busy?’ or did he say, ‘I need to talk to Randall,’ or did he make small talk, oh, was there noise in the background?”

“He said, ‘Hey, Lo, is Randall with a patient? No, it’s not urgent, just have him call me, please. Thanks, have a great weekend.’ Does that help with whatever you’re trying to figure out in that big brain of yours?”

“... not really,” he admits with a frown.

Here’s the thing - last week, they finally, _finally_ finished the home study part of the adoption process. It’s been a long, borderline invasive four months of questions and social workers in their homes and talking to their friends and Randall’s parents, they even talked to Vera - honestly, how did Vera’s word not settle this whole thing once and for all, doesn’t she run the universe or something? -, and they’re supposed to find out if they’re approved to adopt today, so if Hamish called him, he must have heard from the social worker, so that means... actually, Randall doesn't know what it means but still, _!!!!_

OK, so if they were approved, Hamish… Hamish definitely wouldn’t tell him on the phone. He’d drive over and tell him in person, for sure. So that’s… no, nuh-uh, Randall is not going to read into that. He can’t. He has to finish up with his patient and maybe Hamish is just building the suspense, or he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupting a really busy day. Maybe he’ll be waiting in Randall’s office when he finishes up here. Oh, or he'll probably just say they didn't finish the report yet and then he'll surprise Randall when he gets home! 

The timer goes off - positive. Antibiotics and ice cream for Emily, it is. 

After he delivers the official diagnosis to his tiny but mighty patient and her mom and walks them out - prescription and a few more pieces of candy in hand -, Randall slips into his office and closes the door, leaning back against it while he calls Hamish from his cell phone. 

It only takes one ring for Hamish to answer - not good -, “Hey, how’s it going?”

No pet names, also not good. “A giant cyst exploded on me and there’s a cold going around.”

“Gross and thank god we don’t get sick.”  
  


“How are you?”

“Good.” Hamish’s voice is too bright, his voice always gets a little lighter when he’s lying. “Are you leaving the office?”

“I have some charting and stuff, but did they call about the home study?”

“They did.” 

He… doesn’t sound excited… “And…?”

“They have some concerns.”

They... they what... “What kind of concerns? We got those fancy locks on the balcony doors at the apartment, and -”

“Randall, it -”

“- we fixed the lock on the back door at the Den, and they’d have their own bathroom, and -”

“Hey, Randall, slow -”

“- it’s in the woods with lots of room to run around and it’s secluded and -”

“It’s on a college campus where a lot of students go missing or die in freak accidents. And we don’t have a lot of experience with kids, you’re barely thirty and still in residency, it’s… it’s not a ‘no,’ technically, but it’s not a resounding ‘yes.’”

Oh. 

Randall slumps halfway down the door. “So what does it mean?”

“It means we have more meetings, I guess.”

A lot of Randall’s major life decisions have been decided in meetings and interviews lately. Residency, med school, clinicals, patients, social workers. So many questions. The last time Randall had to answer this many questions, he was literally being tortured, and this still feels worse. 

He gets it. Kids need good homes. Especially kids in foster care. There’s trauma, behavioral challenges, medical issues, and, let’s face it, the foster care system isn’t known for its stellar reputation and there are more horror stories than happily ever afters, so they have to be extra diligent, but he and Hamish would be such. Good. Parents! Hamish even adjusted his teaching schedule to only lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays so he’d be home almost all the time! And they’re in a really good school district, there’s a great daycare program here at the hospital, even though he’s ninety-four percent sure his parents will drop everything and move closer to Belgrave before the ink dries on the paperwork so they might not even need daycare, and they have really good insurance benefits, and they were the ones killing people or killing the people who killed people, can they please just have a kid?

“I’m sorry, Randall,” Hamish says quietly. “I thought -”

“Yeah, me, too.” Now it’s Randall’s turn to sigh. “When’s this meeting happening?”

“She said she’d get back to us with some dates and times.”

“That sounds like the social worker equivalent of, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’” He sighs, shaking his head. “What did we do wrong?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing. If we could tell her about everything you’ve done for the Knights and me, we would have been parents two months ago.”

“Everything ‘ _we_ ’ did for the Knights.”

“Mostly you.”

“Only because you had to go to work. That’s why you’re the stay at home parent this time.” 

“What a hardship…” There’s a hint of a smile there, probably forced but Randall appreciates the effort. “Look, I know you’re not thrilled about private adoption but maybe it’s time we look into it more closely.”

He’s not thrilled about it at all. He’s seen one too many movies and TV shows where the mom changes her mind at the last minute or comes looking for the kid years later to ‘rekindle their relationship,’ or something. But what he says to Hamish is, “Isn’t there a spell or something where we could just conjure up a baby?”

“If there was anything safe enough to try, I’m sure Vera would have mentioned it by now.”

“Magic is so dumb, Hamish.”

“It does feel like that way right now,” he agrees with a deep sigh. “I was going to wait to tell you, but I didn’t want you to call or race home and -”

“No, it’s OK.” He lets his head fall back against the door. “I’m sorry you had to break it to me at all.”

“Me, too, baby. Do you want to cancel dinner?”

“How? We’re the ones feeding everyone.”

“I’m sure they’d understand given the situation.”

“They’d just show up with takeout and beer anyway. We might as well commiserate over homemade food and whatever drink you think compliments risotto -”

“Chardonnay or Nebbiolo.”

“ - and whatever Lilith and Nicole found for dessert. Wait, why can’t we just drink what’s supposed to go in the risotto?”

“Because it should compliment the flavor and enhance the subtle flavors of the dish instead of amplifying a single ingredient, how do you not know this by now?”

Oh, Randall knows, he just really likes winding Hamish up about it. “Right, right, how could I forget?”

“Uh-huh,” he says in a skeptical tone that says he knows exactly what Randall is trying to do. “Although I guess if you’re not cooking with it, even though I’ve told you a hundred times it won’t bother me, you could make a case for drinking it.”

“And I have told you a hundred times, your sobriety is important to me and I’m going to do everything I can to support you, even though you refuse to let Gabrielle take over bartending duties,” Randall snipes back. “Seriously, what’s with that?”

“It’s a very unhealthy way of proving I can control myself and resist temptation.”

That… was a rhetorical question, but OK. Wow. Hamish’s level of self-awareness is truly astounding. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t have told them I’m a recovering alcoholic.”

“It would have looked worse if we tried to lie about it, but it shouldn’t matter. Half the shit they asked us about shouldn’t matter.”

“No, but it was very cute when you blushed about the sex stuff.”

Randall groans. “Why did they need to know any of that?”

“Well, on one hand, a healthy sex life is usually a sign of a happy marriage to most people, and on the other hand, they want to make sure we’re not perverts. Honestly, I think it’s good that they found all that stuff in the drawer -”

“Oh my god…”

“- because all it implies is that we trust each other and communicate effectively.”

“Why is everyone so obsessed with our sex life, Hamish?”

“Probably because our relationship played out rather dramatically in a fairly public forum. Plus you’re sexy as hell.”

Speaking of blushing… ugh. Stupid face. Stupid blood vessels and hormone responses. Also, “Hell wasn’t sexy, but you are _sinfully_ attractive.”

“I deserve that,” Hamish says, sighing. He’s probably shaking his head, he shakes his head at Randall a lot. “Go chart. I’ve got… ten new member candidates I want to get through before I leave.”

“Really?” Randall pushes himself off the door and walks toward his desk. “Didn’t they give you those last month?”

“They gave me a stack of legacies, so now I am going through all incoming freshmen and transfer students.”

“Have you found any good ones?”

“A few. Kepler’s niece is in the mix.”

“Oh.”

“Mhmm.”

“What,” Randall clears his throat, “what are you thinking about her?”

“I am deferring to Vera on that one. She had the issues with Kepler. We simply… inherited them.”

Translation: If Hamish doesn’t invite her to join the Order, it could look suspicious and hypocritical, given the relationship they established with Praxis in spite of a few key members trying to kill Hamish. Not to mention there’s a strong chance she already knows about the Order and will come looking for them if a blue rose isn’t waiting for her on move-in day. If he does invite her, she’ll probably start looking for answers about her aunt and it could lead back to Randall and despite all of the issues Kepler caused, there will still be punishment. Deeply unpleasant punishment. Passing the decision to Vera won’t change any of the outcomes, but it will hopefully look like professional courtesy instead of covering up a murder. 

“Sorry to put you in a bad position,” Randall mumbles. 

“You aren’t, and there’s an innuendo somewhere in that statement but I’m too tired and frustrated to figure it out.”

“What if you go through five more candidates, I speed-chart, and we see what other bad positions we can get into before we have to start cooking?”

Hamish chuckles. “That one was better.”

“I aim to please.”

“OK, I’m going to go through _six_ more and I’ll see you when you get home. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Hamish-Kebob.”

He hangs up before Hamish can whine about the nickname. And before he can hear Randall sigh from some deep, dark place in his soul where all his hopes and dreams go to shrivel up and die. 

* * *

Being a grown up werewolf is weird. 

Take Randall, for instance. He has a set 9-5 schedule on Mondays and Wednesdays, an 11-7 schedule on Tuesday, 9-3 Friday and every other Saturday, and Thursdays and Sundays off. He takes appointments and vaccinations at the city health clinic a few times a month, too. On top of all of that, he’s still a Knight. The ringing doesn't go off very often anymore, thank god, but he has now taken four solemn oaths in his life:

> 1.) The Knights of St. Christopher's oath, after which he got wasted while Hamish lectured him on the fundamentals of mixology. That one was pretty straightforward until they found out about the second half of the oath, but it worked out. All good. 
> 
> 2.) The Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose oath. Technically a mistake, but it’s also worked out.
> 
> Hamish is still doing his Temple Magus thing which is way, way more involved than Randall imagined but Hamish is great at it. He strikes a hard balance between putting the fear of god into baby Order members while also encouraging, reassuring, and protecting them. Randall can’t count the number of times he’s overheard Medicums telling their Acolytes pupils, “He’s tough but he’s fair,” or “He’s not that scary once you spend more time around him,” and “I had a mental breakdown at the bar and he made me a drink spiked with a calming potion and when I tried to explain, he just shrugged and said, ‘College sucks.’” Oh, and Randall’s personal favorite, “Yeah, he’s hot, but have you seen his husband? I’d watch that sex tape…”
> 
> (They don’t have a sex tape. Randall does have a password protected file of photos on his phone, and Hamish has one, too, but there’s no tape. Just photos. Lots and lots of photos. But no faces in the photos, per the cardinal rule of sexting.)
> 
> 3.) Marriage vows, see also: the best day of Randall’s life.
> 
> They got married six months to the day of getting engaged on the grassy hills overlooking the beach about an hour away. It was just the ten of them, the Knights+2, his parents, and Vera, dancing barefoot and taking photos on the beach and shoving cake at each other’s faces - that was the third best part of the wedding, after kissing Hamish and his friends’ ridiculous but heartfelt toasts - and once the sun went down, it was nothing but stars in the sky and their twinkling reflection on the water, holding Hamish in his arms and never wanting the night to end. 
> 
> 4.) The Hippocratic Oath, which caused a few dumb problems that got way blown out of proportion.
> 
> The Gnostic Council put him through the damn ringer about magic versus medicine and ‘You can’t use magic on your patients or else…!!!’ Pssht, 'or else' what, but if he’s being completely honest, he was mostly just upset that Hamish didn’t warn him about it. That particular discussion turned into the biggest fight he’s ever had with Hamish. Huge fight. Really, really bad fight. Bad as in Hamish stayed at the apartment alone for the weekend and the only time they talked was a confirmation-of-life text in the morning and another at night. 
> 
> But that Sunday night Randall came home from his ER rotation and it was, even by the nurses’ standards, the worst night ever. There was a massive car accident, a shootout in a nightclub, a fire at an apartment complex, and out of all the patients who came in, only four were expected to live. All he wanted to do was wolf out, lose his damn mind for a while, eat cereal, and go the fuck to bed, but he came back from the woods to find Hamish sitting on the porch waiting for him with a frosty glass of milk because he read about the shooting and the fire on the news and figured they'd all wind up in Randall's ER and he didn’t want him to be alone. Even if they were mad at each other.
> 
> So he shoved Hamish’s legs apart and curled up on the step below him, pulled his arms around him and whispered, “Can you come home now? Please? I’m sorry I got so mad but… can we just figure this all out later?”
> 
> “I’m sorry, too. We should have talked about it a long time ago.” Hamish caught his hand and kissed his palm. “I missed you.”
> 
> “I missed you too. Let’s never do this again. Deal?”
> 
> “Deal.”
> 
> There were only two good things to come out of that argument: one, the make up sex was … well it started out as make up sex, then it turned into ‘I missed you’ sex, and then they actually got around to talking, which turned into arguing, but then there was celebratory sex in the kitchen when they finally came to an agreement on how to proceed, and then there was, ‘I love you so much,’ sex before they went to bed. It was awesome but Randall had a limp the next day and Hamish pulled at least three muscles. And their friends laughed at them. Especially Vera. She might still be laughing at them. 
> 
> Oh, and two: they came to an agreement that it would only be fair not to use magic at all in the medical setting. He hated it, Hamish hated that he hated it, they acknowledged there might come a time where Randall feels strongly enough about a situation that he’ll do it anyway and if he does, he will tell Hamish about it immediately, and they will go from there.

The other Knights all have their own things, too. Everyone’s in grad school except Gabrielle, who is in med school - she and Randall hug for a solid three minutes nearly every time they see each other now because they share a whole new concept of hell that no one else will ever understand -, and Alyssa who’s working in the PR / Communications department and as the Order’s official Praxis liaison - she’s a mini Vera and she’s coming for that Temple Magus gig, which Hamish is totally supportive of because hopefully they’re going to be dads at some point.

Wanna know the _really_ weird part of adulting?

The Knights don’t live together anymore. 

Everyone still has a room at the Den, and they stay over after raids and Order Stuff(™) or if they drink too much, stuff like that, but Jack and Alyssa are in the process of renovating his grandpa’s house - which means they're _all_ in the process of renovating his grandpa's house, but mostly it's just painting and ripping up gross carpet, thank god - and stay at Alyssa’s apartment in the meantime. Lilith and Nicole got an apartment. Gabrielle got a penthouse. They see each other all the time, even if it’s just going for a run or grabbing lunch, but the house was so quiet once it was just him and Hamish that he couldn’t sleep. It took him two weeks to stop listening for Lilith padding down the hall in the middle of the night, or Gabrielle’s white noise machine, or Jack’s phone as he texted Alyssa. And the cupboards seemed so bare and sad once they weren’t crammed with enough snacks to suit all of their tastes, there was only one kind of milk in the fridge, no weird but delicious finds from the farmer’s market or green juices, they didn’t have to write their names on things - not that it ever worked, unless it belonged to Lilith or Gabrielle - and it all felt empty for a while.

But it gave him an idea. A weird idea. It felt a little wrong, a little sacrilegious, because the Den might be in Hamish and Randall’s name, it might belong to them on paper, but it was the Knights’ home, it was all of theirs, but… what if they made some changes to the house?

So he texted the group chat minus Hamish: _would it hurt your feelings if we did some stuff to the den?_

And what he got back was…

Gabrielle: _No shiplap, accent walls, edison bulbs, or wallpaper!!!_

Lilith: _dont touch my room or the foosball table, everything else can go_

Jack: _believe me when i say ur gonna think u can replace the counters by urself but ur cant so dont even try_

Then he asked Hamish, “How would you feel about changing the house a little bit?”

Hamish had looked around, assessing the atmosphere and aesthetics, and admitted, “I fucking hate that wall paper.”

So they tore it down and painted the walls a similar shade of teal so it would be familiar but new. Then they replaced the blinds with blackout curtains so they could still make it dark and shaded and give them some privacy, but the gray and white patterned fabric really brightened up the space. 

And then they moved the couch out of the study cave to bring downstairs. They kept the old one, too, because they have too many good memories on that couch and there’s never enough places for people to sit anyway, and it looked great once they got everything rearranged. Except with the new layout, they realized they might need a few more end tables, and then they found this bench with storage baskets built into it which would be great for stashing stuff _and_ it was even more sitting room. 

And they painted the kitchen cabinets and replaced the handles, which only took a weekend but made a huge difference. 

And then they took down the wallpaper in the front hallway and wound up making the others pick what color to paint it because they couldn’t agree on anything and it turned into a pizza and beer pong night because no one else could decide either. Gabrielle won and now their front hallway is a light mossy color. Very relaxing, very ‘Welcome to our home, we promise not to murder you!’ 

So little by little, the Den changed. Evolved. It was bittersweet, but Jack made a good point, “You’d have to do it anyway, half the stuff in here is a baby hazard,” and that’s how they wound up sanding and sealing and staining the porch, updating the HVAC system, and installing screens in all of the windows. Not that it apparently mattered to the adoption people, but at least it’s done. 

“It looks a million times better,” Lilith admits from the old couch, glancing around with a smile. “We should have fixed some of this shit when we were still living here.”

“Right?” Randall says, smiling at Hamish as he hands him a drink. “Especially the porch. I got, like, eight splinters the first year I lived here.”

“I think I still have one,” she mumbles, inspecting her finger. 

“The whole place was an emergency tetanus shot waiting to happen,” Gabrielle mumbles, slumping onto Randall’s shoulder, “in a charming sort of way, of course.”

“Right,” Randall agrees, “just like how we’re cute cause we’re fluffy even though we kill people.”

Nicole shakes her head firmly. “No one thinks that.”

“We’re cuter than leprechauns,” Gabrielle insists. 

“Barely,” Alyssa scoffs. 

Randall asks loudly, “Am I the only one here who never saw the leprechaun?”

“I didn’t,” Hamish says, pushing Randall’s legs off the couch so he can sit down, “ but I’m more disappointed I didn’t get to see it bite that guy’s hand off.”

“No, it just bit all the way through his arm and broke it,” Jack corrects him, which makes Hamish frown, but Randall just rolls his eyes. 

“That’s not that impressive.”

“It was the size of a Yorkshire Terrier,” Jack adds, holding his hands up to like he’s holding an invisible small dog for reference, "but with teeth like ours."

Leprechauns sound a little bit like Gabrielle and Lilith, but Randall values his life too much to say that out loud. Hamish doesn’t, though, Hamish likes to live on the edge and Randall _knows_ he’s thinking it because he’s eyeing Gabrielle and trying not to smirk.

He grabs Hamish’s chin and forces him to look at him. “No.”

“You can’t possibly -”

“Was it about how that description applies to certain people within our circle of friends?”

“Of course not, Randall,” Hamish says earnestly, batting his hand away, “and I can’t believe you think Gabrielle and Lilith could be leprechauns.”

Lilith lobs a pillow at his face. “You asshole!”  
  


“Take that back!” Gabrielle snarls, poking him hard in the ribs with her pointy little fingers.

“I didn’t say that!” Randall cries, trying to swat Gabrielle’s hands away and dodge everything Lilith is throwing at him at the same time.

“Wait,” Nicole holds up a finger, “you guys had a leprechaun for your initiation test?”

“What did you have?” Alyssa asks.

“We just had to solve a riddle! Oh my god, you guys are way more hardcore than my last chapter…”

Randall shoves Hamish forward and tries to hide behind him. “You’re supposed to protect me. It was in our wedding vows.”

“Then you shouldn’t say such awful things about our friends,” Hamish retorts, but he does catch the next pillow that flies in their direction. 

“Worst,” he smacks Gabrielle’s hand away, “husband,” and dodges another pillow - he told Hamish throw pillows were dumb but nooo, they ‘needed more color’! -, “ever!”

“Worse than Henry the Eighth?” Hamish scoffs. “I don’t think so.”

Well, if his husband isn’t going to protect him, he could try appealing to the group as a whole by reminding them, “If the girls kill me, you guys will have to actually go see a doctor instead of texting me with your weird symptoms!”

"Oh, hey, Alyssa," Jack says after a quick drink of his beer, "you should ask Randall about that thing you showed me earlier."

Alyssa scoffs and smacks him lightly with the back of her hand, but she's trying not to grin. 

Being married to Hamish has given Randall excellent sneaky-detection senses, and these two are definitely up to something, so he straights up and asks, "What's up?"

Alyssa gives Jack what's probably meant to be an annoyed look, but they're not even suppressing their smiles anymore as she stands up and pulls off her sweater which leaves her in a tight tank top and leggings and turns to the side and asks, “What do you think this bump is?”

It’s a baby.

It is definitely a baby.

Holy shit, they're having a baby!

That’s why she’s grinning and Jack is laughing behind his hand and Randall leaps off the couch to tackle Jack to the ground because, “You're having a baby?!?”

“Get off me, Randall!” he sputters out between laughs. 

He doesn’t, he just sits up and asks Alyssa, “How far along are you?”

“Thirteen weeks and some change,” she says, smiling as she smooths her hands over her tiny bump. “My app says they’re the size of a pear.”

“And they’re finally starting to look like a human, right?”

“I was calling them our little alien for a while,” Jack admits fondly, reaching up to touch Alyssa’s baby bump. “I wanted to tell you guys so bad.”

“Waiting is smart,” Randall assures him. “I’m so happy for you guys!”

“Me, too,” Jack grunts. “Now please get off me, you’re crushing my spleen.”

He stands, pulling Jack to his feet with him and passing him to Hamish for that overly aggressive masculine hug thing they do - why? Why do they hug like drunk fraternity brothers? They see each other naked semi-routinely, they can hug like they love each other -, and hugs Alyssa. “You can call me anytime with pregnancy questions, no matter how weird.”

“Is it normal to crave mangoes?”

“Cravings are common, there’s no such thing as normal,” he replies, rubbing her back one more time before letting her go. 

She grabs Randall's arm. "If you guys get a baby, we can have playdates!"

“Yes,” he agrees immediately, grinning and nodding and not looking at Hamish. “Oh my god, that’s… wow, that’s going to be wild!”

Everyone’s too excited to notice how weird he probably sounded. Except Hamish, judging by the way he wraps his arm around Randall’s shoulder and his hand dangles over his scar so he’ll know he’s reeling, too. Because… Randall is so, _so_ happy for Jack and Alyssa and he can’t wait to spoil the crap out of their kid, and Hamish is, too, he can feel that. But he wants this for them, too, and he’s trying to focus on how excited he is for a mini-Jack/Alyssa hybrid - so many khakis and blazers, so much moral superiority -, and now he can’t help wondering if he and Hamish are asking for too much. They have each other, they’ve achieved a relative state of calm and peace with the Order and Praxis, they’ve way outlived the average Knight’s life expectancy. Maybe they should just accept what they have and move on.

He sighs and gives Hamish’s scar a quick kiss. “I don’t want to ruin their moment. If they ask, let’s just say the report was delayed or something.”

“Works for me.” His arm tightens around him and Randall lets himself lean into him as he adds in a whisper, “It’ll happen for us. I promise.”

He’s right. Randall knows he’s right. They just… have to wait. Which sucks, but at least he has Hamish. They have their friends and before they know it, they will have a Mini Morton to spoil and corrupt. They’re all safe and thriving, so for now, that has to be enough. 

Gabrielle grabs Alyssa’s hand. “Please send me any and all outfits before you buy them.”

“So you can buy them or veto them?” Alyssa asks with raised eyebrows. 

“Maybe both, but mostly to veto them.”

“Gabby,” Jack groans.

“Despite all my best efforts with you, Morton, style is learned,” she snaps. "I will not let your offspring wander through life looking like an extra from a Kohls commercial."

“Hang on,” Lilith says suddenly, “wasn’t thirteen weeks ago around the same time that we chased down that magic tourist who tried to set Silverback on fire?”

OK, Randall is sad, but he will never forgive himself if he passes up the opportunity to say, “Wow, guys, hot and bothered much?”

Everyone groans and throws random napkins and pillows at him. At least Hamish tries harder to bat them away this time.


	2. In which there are things bigger and more terrifying than werewolves, brief discussions of stuffed animals, and everyone's weekend is ruined...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again!
> 
> Here's some plot-thickens stuff. 
> 
> Also, there's violence so if you want to skip it just stop reading when Hamish opens the door and pick it up again when they get into the shower (sorry no smut yet.. I know, I'm just as shocked as you are that it's taking this long to get to sexy fun times.)
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!

Randall has been awake for a while and alternating between staring at the ceiling, dozing, and kissing on a slow to wake Hamish. Not because he wants to wake him up, that would be breaking his own rule (never disturb a sleeping Hamish), just because he likes kissing Hamish. Even when he’s fast asleep, even when he barely touches his lips to his skin and Hamish sighs so softly Randall barely hears it or his fingers twitch like he’d reach for him if he could only muster up enough energy. 

Hamish just grabbed Randall’s hand where it was curled over his hip, though, so he's awake enough for Randall to he drop a light kiss to the back of his neck and another one at the top of his spine and trail them all the way down to the small of his back, smiling against sleep-warm skin as Hamish chuckles out a raspy laugh.

Once he’s kissed his way all the way down and back up, Randall rests his chin on his shoulder and asks, “Do we have to get out of bed for anything today?”

“Only if you want to have clean clothes to wear next week and food to eat,” Hamish mumbles. 

Neither of those are actual problems. “Amazon and takeout.”

“You’ll still have to get out of bed. Besides,” he yawns, flopping onto his back and snaking an arm around Randall to pull him down with him, “you’d get jittery after an hour and want to go do something outside.”

Damn. Hamish knows him too well. 

Randall has no idea if it’s true, but he says, “It’s supposed to rain,” because he just wants to get his way for once, which means he has to keep Hamish from looking out the window at the bright, sunny sky and from checking the weather on his phone, so he grabs his face and turns his head towards him. “Maybe you could find something for me to do _in_ bed to keep me occupied.” 

“Hmm, like what?” Hamish muses, even as a heated look flickers in his eyes. 

Randall shrugs. “You’re the smart one. I'm sure you can think of something.”

He barely catches Hamish's grin before he leans in but instead of kissing Randall he goes straight to sucking bruises onto his neck and there is a direct line from Randall’s neck to his dick so this is officially the most successful trick Randall has ever tried to play on Hamish. He won the second Hamish’s lips touched his skin, his teeth, his tongue, the heat of his breath as he drags his mouth over Randall’s throat. Best. Trick. Ever. 

“Too bad it’s not going to rain today, and we _have_ to go to the store.”

Damnit. 

Hang on, maybe not ‘damnit’ because Hamish doesn’t stop. He just pauses over his chest to rub his cheek over his scar - Randall does not arch five feet off the bed, anyone who says differently is lying, he remains appropriately composed given the level of arousal he is experiencing (so much arousal) - keeps going, trailing a line of kisses down his body. Soft and light but the warmth of his lips spreads like fire over Randall’s skin, or maybe that’s just the heat pooling in his stomach and radiating through his body as his mouth moves lower and lower and he’s just about to get his mouth on Randall’s dick and -

Motherfucking ringing, are you serious? Now? Don’t these idiots know Randall is about to get some version of fucked? 

“God fucking damnit,” he yells, wincing when the ringing sharpens to the point where he thinks he can feel the vibrations in his brain. “Shit, that sounds like it’s close.”

“It is,” Hamish growls, already out of bed and halfway to the door. 

Randall scrambles after him, calling over their steps pounding against the hardwood, “Should we wait for -”

Something massive is barreling towards the house, snapping branches with loud cracks as it rips through the woods. Fast with heavy footfalls and deep, rumbling breath, every exhale punctuated by a labored grunt. And even if it could be a werewolf, even if that was possible - there aren’t any more werewolves, they have all the hides, there’s no mention of more anywhere in the journals or the Reliquary -, the smell is all wrong. This… thing, whatever this is, it’s definitely an animal smell but there’s a rancid undertone, fermenting fruit and rotting flesh. And from the sound of its feet against the ground, it’s bigger than a werewolf, but what the hell is bigger than a werewolf? What the hell roars with enough force to shake the gravel?

He and Hamish freeze at the same time, right in front of the door. 

  
“Blitz attack?” Randall suggests. Not that he sees any other option because there’s no way this thing is going down in a one-on-one, but it’s always good to have a game plan. 

“Blitz attack,” Hamish agrees. “If things start to go badly, get -”

Another roar drowns out whatever he was about to say - it’s close enough that the door rattles this time - but Randall has a pretty good idea of where he was going. Get out of here. Get everyone out of here when the others show up. Like they didn’t take the same oaths - “I give my life to the cause,” “You and me, however long we get,” “So long as we both shall live” -, but it’s a formality. Randall would never let anything happen to Hamish. Neither would Greybeard, who’s currently seething at the intrusion (you’d think he’s the one who got cockblocked), gnashing his teeth as he paces just beneath Randall’s skin.

He gives Hamish a quick kiss on his scar and then his cheek. “We’ll be careful.”

“So will we,” Hamish returns, brushing his thumb over Randall’s chest - he feels Tundra’s own rage flare against Hamish's concern - and adds, “But I mean it, Randall.”

It’s easier to nod and let it go than argue with him. If it comes to that - it won’t -, he’s not going anywhere without Hamish. If Greybeard has to grab him by the back of his neck like a bad puppy and drag him away from the fight, he will. Plus if this thing tries to get through the door, it will crush their porch in the process and Randall did not spend the hottest three weeks of the summer fixing it up for this asshole to destroy it. 

Hamish waves the door open and the thing outside… 

Randall thinks it’s a bear. 

Was a bear. 

Is supposed to be a bear, but it’s at least two feet taller than Greybeard when it rears up onto its back legs. Even with its skin stretched tight over his ribs - it shouldn’t be able to walk, that’s how emaciated it looks, it shouldn’t be able to stand -, the ground shakes as it drops back onto all fours, the force of its landing rippling over gray skin covered in cracked, oozing scabs. 

Greybeard takes over the moment Randall’s foot leaves the porch step and lunges. He catches the bear-thing around the neck, teeth sinking easily into its broken skin, and the blood that bursts into his mouth is like sludge, so congealed and clotted he nearly chokes on it as he tries to drag it to the ground. All he succeeds in doing is ripping the damn thing’s throat open as it stalks past him to swipe at Tundra and send him crashing to the ground hard enough to send up a cloud of dust in his wake. 

Wrong fucking move, FrankenBear. 

Greybeard bites down on its back leg and wrenches it out to the side as hard as he can. One sharp twist and the leg breaks. 

Off. 

Right off with barely a squelch and not a single drop of blood. 

It’s disturbingly similar to what Randall’s done to a roasted chicken, which he might never eat again now, so thanks for that…

Greybeard spits the limb out and narrowly avoids getting crushed as Tundra pummels the bear again, swipes across its face - its skin is probably dangling from its skull, this thing’s not dying, this thing is fucking dead, it’s decomposing in real time - and that should be the end of it. There’s a hole in its throat, it’s missing half its face and it still just bellows in Tundra’s face and raises a massive paw, thick, black claws slashing through the air with a hiss as they connect with his stomach.

The smell of blood hits Greybeard’s nose even before it wells up under the torn skin of Tundra’s torso. Blood from wide, gaping cuts that expand with every breath Tundra takes and drips as he staggers backward, ears flat against his head and muzzle twisting in an angry, pained snarl. 

Tundra meets his eyes and blinks, hard and slow, rumbling out a quiet, reassuring growl bordering on a purr, even as blood gurgles out of the thickest of the cuts - stomach wounds don’t bleed that much, not unless you hit an artery, why is there so much blood? He shouldn’t be bleeding like that, why is he bleeding so much? - and drips all the way down his body to hit the ground with a barely audible _plop_. 

The bear-thing’s skin is shredded to the bone, hanging off its twitching snout like it smells blood, too, except it, like it's trying to find the source and sniffing it out because... it... doesn’t have eyes, Randall realizes. It only has deep, hollowed out sockets.

But it smells the blood and wobbles toward Tundra, so Greybeard shoves his way into its path - Tundra can chew on his ear later, at least he’ll be around to do it - and digs his claws into its chest and tears with everything in him, skin peeling away like tissue paper to expose grayed out muscle and bones that crumble to dust as he tears through them till he finds a barely beating heart and crushes it. Arteries crack in his fist, black globs of blood ooze through his fingers, and finally, _finally,_ the bear-thing drops.

A wet, startlingly human sounding cough has him turning back to - 

Hamish. 

Pale, shaking, breathing hard through his teeth, jaw clenched in a pained grimace with his eyes screwed shut, covered in blood from his chest to his hips.

Randall drops the heart and holds his hands over Hamish’s torso - stop shaking, focus, he’ll be fine - and blurts out, “ _Sanetur_.”

The bleeding stops. 

His skin knits back together. 

He’s still pale, still shaking, but now he’s taking big, deep gulps of air and his face goes slack in relief. His whole body goes slack and Randall rushes to get an arm around him, even though Hamish grunts, “I’m good.”

“You lost a shit ton of blood,” Randall corrects. “Here, let me -”

Pain explodes in his leg as sharp teeth pierce through skin and muscle, he feels the tips scraping against his bone, and, holy _fucking_ shit, that _hurts_. 

Tundra dives onto the bear-thing, clamps onto its neck and, with a loud, sickening crunch, bites all the way through its neck till its head flops against the ground sideways. It’s not enough, clearly it’s not enough if Greybeard tore out the fucker’s heart and he can still bite, but Tundra doesn’t stop at breaking its neck, he rips the goddamn thing’s head off. 

If Randall could stomp on the bear-thing’s head, just… put his foot through its skull, oh, that would feel good, but you know what else would feel good? His leg not being crushed in the jaw of a freaking zombie bear monster, ugh, it’s already bruising and swelling up. He tests a step and, “OW!”

Tundra throws one last growl at the bear-thing and in a blink, Hamish is back, dropping to a crouch to gently wrap his hands around Randall’s calf and mutter, “ _Restittuatur._ ”

Randall grits his teeth as his bone shifts back into place and the stabbing pain dulls to a persistent throb. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. Nothing like what Hamish’s is feeling, given the way he presses a hand to his stomach as he stands, so Randall ducks under his arm and steers them towards the house. 

“I’m fine,” Hamish insists - sure you are, that’s why you’re leaning so heavily against your husband and why you sound like you’re about to pass out -, head lolling against Randall’s. “You think it’s dead?”

“I don’t think it was ever alive,” Randall mumbles, glancing back at the thankfully still unconscious bear-thing. 

He gets Hamish into the shower before limping into their room to get clothes and their phones, ignoring the million texts to tell the group: _we got attacked but were ok, getting cleaned up now. be careful, theres a zombie murder bear on the lawn and idk if its dead. If anyone is coming by car, pls run over it several times_

He sends the text and pulls up Vera’s number, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he heads back to the bathroom.

“This had better be good, Dr. Carpio-Duke,” she groans, “I’m -”

“Something attacked the Den,” he cuts in. “We heard ringing and, and, and this thing came out of the woods, and I don’t know if it’s -”

“Are you both alright?”

No, his leg hurts and Hamish almost got disemboweled.

Oh god, Hamish almost… 

Hamish could have been -

Vera’s voice cuts through that thought - thank god - with a sharp, “Randall? Are you alright?”

“We’re OK,” he says quickly. “We’re… we healed everything.”

There’s a long enough pause that Randall thinks she’s going to argue - she shouldn’t, they’re fine, Hamish is alive, they’re OK - but all she says is, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Good. 

OK, so that’s… everyone’s in the loop, Vera’s up to speed, Hamish is alive and hopefully still sitting in the shower instead of standing up because it would be so dumb if Hamish survived the bear-thing only to be taken out by a dizzy spell in the shower. 

He sets their stuff on the sink and calls through the shower curtain, “That was our worst blitz attack ever. We need to go back to Werewolf Bootcamp.”

“It would have worked against anything else,” Hamish yells back. 

Randall pulls back at the curtain to find a vertical Hamish sloshing water over his torso and raises his eyebrows. “Really? You couldn’t wait forty seconds?”

“That was longer than forty seconds,” Hamish mumbles, jerking his head for Randall to get in. 

Randall rolls his eyes and carefully steps into the tub, pulling the curtain closed behind him. He grabs the body wash and tries to gently scrub the blood off Hamish’s stomach, but it’s harder than you’d think because there’s a lot of it, it lasted through two transformations, and because Randall’s hands are shaking. He’s seen more blood than this, he’s _drawn_ more blood than this, and Hamish is fine. He’s healed, he doesn’t even flinch when Randall touches him, so there’s no reason for Randall’s hands to shake, but they won’t stop, if anything they just shake harder. 

A hand curls around his jaw, tilting his head up to meet bright, crystal clear blue eyes - see? He’s fine, what the hell is Randall freaking out about? -, and Hamish’s fingers are still a little cold, his lips are, too, but they grow warmer with every brush against his.

What would he do if Hamish’s lips stayed cold?

He covers Hamish’s hand and presses it harder to his face, rubs his cheek over his palm and tries to focus on the steady pulse thrumming through the veins snaking up the inside of his wrist, tries to hone in on Hamish’s scent under the blood - black coffee and hardback books, leather armchairs and wool cardigans -, tries not to think about how close he was to losing him earlier without even realizing it.

“That’s why I was trying to clean it off before you came back,” Hamish breathes right before he presses another kiss to Randall’s lips. “I didn’t want you spiraling.”

“I’m not,” Randall insists - he totally is - and slides his hands under Hamish’s arms, presses against his shoulders until he comes closer. “How are you feeling?”

“Remember when Gabrielle made us see who could hold a plank the longest?”

Yikes. “That good, huh?”

“And I didn’t even win anything this time,” Hamish grumbles (he didn’t win anything but bragging rights and the inability to move for an hour). “How’s your leg?”

“Sore,” he admits as he reaches down the trace the jagged lines of yellow-tinged bruises on Hamish’s stomach. “What do you think that thing is?”

“It is either a necromancy spell gone wrong or someone tried to bring their childhood teddy bear to life and it backfired.”

Necromancy seems more likely, but Randall guesses it _could_ be the hellish reincarnation of a well-loved stuffed animal. His stuffed lion had to have its eyes replaced a few times before it went to live on the top shelf of his closet with all the other stuff from his childhood that he’s too sentimental to throw away. Plus most of its mane is missing and its tail is safety-pinned to its body. It might look pretty rough, too, if he ever tried to bring it to life. 

Knowing what he does about Hamish’s childhood, he’s almost afraid to ask, but, “Did you have a favorite stuffed animal growing up?”

“I had a floppy blue elephant. His name was Oliver.” 

Why didn’t someone try to bring that to life, that would be adorable. Almost as adorable as the thought of tiny Hamish with a stuffed elephant tucked under his arm while he lugs around a book bigger than he is. “Please tell me there are photos of you and Oliver.”

“Probably not, but I still have him in a box somewhere. Should we give him to our kid or let them pick out their own?”

The scenes playing out in his head - a little girl playing jungle with a stuffed elephant and lion, a little boy snuggling them tight as he sleeps, maybe somewhere down the road one of each in their pajamas with Randall’s lion and Hamish’s elephant sitting in the window with them while they wait for Santa - make a strong case for passing them down, but so does picking out a new soft, snuggly toy for them to play with and hold and eventually tuck away in their own closet or box. 

His voice comes out softer than he intended when he decides out loud, “We should get them a wolf.”

Hamish gives him one of those sunshine smiles, like the excitement is lighting him up from the inside and bursting out of him, and now Randall is picturing the three of them playing, maybe having a tea party or camping in the backyard or a picnic on the living room floor with the lion, the elephant, and the wolf. Or bringing them all along when it’s time for vaccinations, spending way too much time deciding which one will go to the store or the park with them - maybe they’ll bring all of them anyway and spend the entire adventure double checking no one’s been left behind in the grocery cart or in a playground tunnel -, arranging them all carefully in the bed so no one falls out in the middle of the night. 

Or, considering there’s a literal monster outside their door, the poor kid might spend some time hiding under the bed with their stuffed animals instead playing with them while one of their dads panic-watches from the window, as tentatively agreed upon per earlier discussions. 

Well, technically it was another Big Fight, because the obvious solution is one of them - Hamish - stays with the kid while the other - Randall - goes off to fight bad guys. Hamish disagreed, even though protecting Hamish and the pack, including any and all offspring, spouses, and beloved family members, is Randall’s werewolf job description. Five rounds of rock-paper-scissors, three foosball matches, and eleven games of root beer pong later, all they could agree on was they’d rotate or take it on a case-by-case basis.

In other words, Randall is still trying to figure out how to convince Hamish that he should just be the one to chase down the ringing once they have their kid. On one hand, he’s leaning into the angle that having only one of them respond to ringing establishes a routine and could potentially make the whole thing less scary. Except he can already hear Hamish’s, “You’re right, and it should be me because…”, and that’s an argument he doesn’t feel like repeating anytime soon. You don’t argue with Hamish Duke unless you’ve got your ducks in a row, and half of Randall’s ducks are still in the pond. Where they will probably stay because that’s just how his life works. 

But what happened today? It wouldn’t matter which of them stayed, whoever went to face that thing wouldn’t be coming back. Even if they could somehow hold it off until the others showed up, it won’t work. 

What would Randall do if Hamish bled out in their driveway with a kid hiding upstairs, waiting for their dads to come give them the all clear, and instead it’s just Randall. What would he say to them? 

That thing could have killed Hamish, what would he tell their kid?

He could have lost Hamish.

It could have killed both of them. 

If they had a child, if they had a little boy or girl waiting for them upstairs and they never came up, would they… Would that thing go after them, too? Or would they just be hiding up there until Jack or Lilith or Gabrielle found them and told them...

If Hamish… if he lost Hamish, could he get him back? Is there a ritual or, or a spell for that? 

What would their child do without him? 

What would Randall do without him?

The hands are back on his face, that thing is still crumpled up in their yard, and now there’s are these big, ugly questions blaring in Randall’s mind but when Hamish says, “Look at me,” in a tone that leaves no room for debate, he does and his husband has his warface on, all he can say is, “We’ll do better next time,” because if Hamish goes to war, he goes to war, too. And nothing is going to take Hamish away from him and their kid.

“We will,” Hamish agrees softly and ghosts his lips over Randall’s cheek to whisper into his ear, “How many more dates do I owe you?”

“A lot,” Randall mumbles. 

Hamish’s thoughtful hum tickles his ear, but he doesn’t let him squirm away. “Guess I should take you to a movie or something.”

“Guess you should,” Randall agrees, spluttering when Hamish nips his earlobe. “Stop, I’m OK!”

“Are you?” he muses, nibbling down Randall’s neck, which is nice, _very_ nice, but not at all conducive to conversation or apres-kill clean up… what is he saying, this _is_ apres-kill clean up. 

Except he thinks that’s Jack’s truck barreling through the woods, possibly taking that first turn on two wheels. Randall’s never heard a car chase in real life so he’s just guessing that’s why his truck sounds weird. Also, Hamish just re-introduced his teeth to Randall’s pulse point, so who cares how fast Jack is driving?

Apparently - and unfortunately, Hamish does because he makes a disappointed noise and kisses the spot he just bit. “If he doesn’t wreck, he’ll be there in four minutes.”

That doesn’t bode well for apres-kill. They’re good, but they’re not _that_ good. Randall could probably get Hamish off with his mouth pretty fast, but Hamish might still be woozy so maybe this is a… he refuses to call it a good thing because he’s been led to believe he was getting laid twice now with nothing but a few love bites to show for it, but he will at least concede that shower sex probably isn’t a smart move right now. Not to mention Hamish’s stomach is sore because he almost - nope! Not going back there, nuh-uh, no thanks, that is a big long nope-rope leading to a big, steaming pile of NOPE. 

So he just kisses Hamish and murmurs into the space between them, “To be continued…” but Hamish pulls him back for a longer, harder kiss because Hamish is such a fucking tease. Randall’s fucking tease, but still a fucking tease.

With monumental effort, Randall turns away from Hamish to grab their towels and get this show on the road - when did he become the responsible one in this relationship? Sweet Jesus… - because the sooner everyone gets here and they figure out what’s going on, the sooner he and Hamish can get back to doing whatever the hell they want. Which is each other, so maybe he’s not the responsible one, maybe he’s just the thirsty one… thirsti _er_ one… Are they ever going to hit a point where they don’t want to jump each other’s bones all the time? Will it just be a natural adaptation once they have a kid and they just don’t have time for it?

Hamish tosses a pair of shorts at him. “What’s got you thinking so hard?”

“Just how we won’t be able to have sex all the time once our nugget gets here.”

“We’ll be fine, and don’t call our kid a ‘nugget.’”

“Little kids are shaped like nuggets.”

“You’re shaped like a nugget.” They both glance down at Randall’s still shirtless body and, not to brag or anything, but there’s nothing nugget-like about this situation and Hamish must know it because he hums appreciatively and mumbles, “I take it back.”

Randall pulls his shirt on before Hamish can comment on whether or not he’s blushing (he is) and starts towards the stairs. He hits the landing just as the front door flies open with a loud ‘clang’ against the wall. 

“Guys?” Jack yells. “Hamish? Randall?”

Randall waves a hand. “Right here, buddy.”

He and Alyssa skid to a halt at the sight of him, Jack doubled over with his hands on his knees and Alyssa muttering, “Oh thank god,” and bracing herself with a hand on Jack’s back.

“We’re fine,” Hamish tells them, slipping around him toward the couch. “Just processing and decompressing.”

Alyssa points out the window. “What the hell is that thing?”

Randall glances out at the bear-thing, completely devoid of tire tracks, and groans. “You were supposed to run over it to make sure it’s dead-dead.”

“As opposed to being mostly dead…?” Jack asks slowly.

“As opposed to being walking-dead,” Randall corrects him, “but nice _Princess Bride_ reference.”

Hamish gives him an impressed look. “Oh yeah, nice one, Jack.”

“Guys!” Alyssa snaps. “Not the time.”

When isn’t it time for a _Princess Bride_ reference? Hey, maybe that thing is an R.O.U.S! Did Randall wake up in a really weird crossover or something? Because if he did, he’d really prefer the MCU. He’s not a fan of horses. Or R.O.U.S.es, if that's whatever the hell that bear-thing actually is. Hamish could rock that pirate outfit, though. 

“I have no idea,” Hamish tells her, glaring out the window at the pile of zombie bear stinking up their yard. “We heard ringing, then it came running toward the house.”

Jack glances between him and Randall. “You think whoever was doing the magic is still around?”

“We should go check,” Randall realizes but he doesn’t get more than a step away before Hamish pulls him back. “I mean, wow, Jack, what a horrible plan. Seriously, what's this guy thinking...”

Hamish gives him a flat look and explains, “If there’s anything else like that out there, we need more than the three of us."

If there’s anything else like that out there, they need to burn down the woods and kill it with fire, but sure, reinforcements might work, too. 

Speaking of reinforcements, Gabrielle comes running up the driveway, shrieking, “Oh my god, eww!” as she passes the dead bear-thing and she’s still chanting, “Gross! Gross! Gross! Gross!” when she bursts through the door - their wall is taking a real beating today, they’re going to have to re-plaster it at this rate -, panting and covered in sweat. 

Hamish stares at her. “Did you run here?”

“I was in… pilates…” she pants, clutching her side like she has a stitch as she drops onto the couch. “Midnight… said ‘Run!’... so… oh my god, I have a stitch...” 

Gabrielle fucking Dupres, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between or neither.

Nicole’s car pulls up - she doesn’t run the bear-thing over either, these guys are _terrible_ at following instructions - and Lilith’s out of the car and up the steps before it comes to a complete stop. She’s either going to scream at them for being idiots and not waiting for her, or she’s going to tackle them to the ground and smother them. Or both, that’s not entirely off the table. 

It’s a tackle, and while it doesn’t quite knock Randall off his feet, it does knock all the air out of his lungs in a loud, “Oof!” It’s also short-lived so she can punch him on the shoulder, which, “Ow!”

“You idiots!” she cries, whirling around to do the same to Hamish but she notices the bruises at the last minute and goes back to yelling. “Why didn’t you call us?”

“We didn’t have time,” Randall insists, rubbing his arm, “that thing was going to huff and puff and blow the Den down!”

Lilith growls out an “Ugh!” and lightning crackles over the sky as she stomps back toward the porch to scream at Nicole, “I told you they’d get themselves killed if I moved out!”  
  


“Lilith, you were going to kill them yourselves if you didn’t move out,” Nicole says in an exhausted tone that tells Randall they’ve been through this many times before. “And they’re clearly fine if you were just screaming at them.”

There’s another crack of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder, and now it’s pouring.

Randall elbows Hamish, who rolls his eyes and mutters, “That doesn’t count.”

Lilith marches back into the room, closely followed by an exasperated Nicole, and flops onto the couch not currently taken over by a still sweaty but closer to glistening Gabrielle. 

“Well, that thing outside is terrifying,” Nicole announces to no one in particular, “but it’s also definitely dead, and I don’t want it all over my car. Sorry, Randall.”

He waves her off and asks Lilith, “Can you please make it stop raining? We might be able to track whoever sent the zombie mutant bear-thing to kill us.”

Her eyes narrow and he feels her wishing he was dead - murderous anger is Lilith’s love language-, but the rain does stop, so what more can he ask? 

“OK,” Alyssa sighs, settling onto the couch next to Lilith, “take us through the whole thing.”

“We heard ringing,” Hamish explains, “and something coming towards the house, so we came downstairs to check it out. We went outside, fought whatever the hell that thing is, healed each other, and came back here. That’s pretty much it.”

“Did you hear anyone outside?” Jack asks. “Any cars driving around?”

Hamish shakes his head. “Just ringing and the bear-thing.”

“And you guys are OK?” 

They both nod, almost in unison. 

“Hopefully Vera will know what it is,” Randall mumbles, picking up Gabby’s legs so he can sit down. “Dude, you smell.”

“Dude, _you_ smell,” she snaps. “Seriously, how did you two manage to fuck between all that?”

“We didn’t.”

“Then why does it smell like anxiety and sex in here?”

“Because I was anxious and sex helps me wind down!"

“Next time do the deep breathing exercises, and do not make a CPR joke,” she adds, poking him in the ribs with pointed toes. 

He smacks her foot away. “Did you run here barefoot?” 

“I had flip flops, but I lost them in the woods.”

Hamish looks up sharply. “Did you see or smell anything?”

“Uh, no, Hamish, I was a little busy trying not to wolf out in public, and then I was more concerned about you two not dying. Forgive me for caring about your safety and well-being!”

Randall pats her leg. “Thanks, Gabby.”

Her glare only intensifies as she hisses, “You owe me a pedicure and a new pair of sandals, or else I’m taking it out of your future child’s birthday presents fund. By the way, when do you guys go pick one out?"

Alyssa snorts. “They’re kids, not puppies."

"Whatever," she groans, now poking Randall incessantly. "Where's the baby? Where's the baby? Where's the baby?"

What is this? ‘Randall Carpio-Duke and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day’? 

Hamish steps behind him and squeezes his shoulders. “Some things came up in the report that we need to address before we move on to next steps.”

Jack’s face falls. “Oh my god, we’re such assholes..."

“No, you’re not, and don’t you dare apologize. We’re really happy for you guys, and this is just a setback. Before you know it, both of our kids will be coloring on the walls and terrorizing Vera into early retirement.”

“But what the hell is their problem?” Lilith demands. “You’re rich, your house is huge and paid off, you both have good jobs, Randall’s a fucking saint on paper, you’re basically a genius, it’s… total fucking bullshit!”

It’s always nice when Lilith’s rage redirects to someone else, but it’s even better when she’s raging on your behalf.

Randall throws her a grateful smile as Hamish goes on, “It is, but we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

Gabrielle pokes Randall again, much more gently than she was before. “That sucks. I wanted to watch you guys being hot dads."

“Yeah, actually, I have a question,” Nicole cuts in, “are you both going to be ‘Dad?’ How’s that going to work?”

“If the kid is older, we’ll probably just be ‘Hamish and Randall’ for a while. But if we get a baby…” Hamish shrugs. “I don’t see why we can’t both be ‘Dad.’”

“Won’t it be confusing?” Lilith asks. “Like, if they yell for ‘Dad,’ which one of you do they mean?”

“They can just send the wrong one back,” Randall replies, tilting his head till it hits Hamish’s arm. “Or they’ll get both of us and deal with it.” 

“OK, but what are they going to put in their phone when they’re older?” Nicole fires back. 

“And what about when they get Christmas presents and they both say ‘Dad’ on them?” Lilith adds. 

“Or Father’s Day cards?”

Randall blinks at them.

“We were up all night talking about this,” Nicole explains. “It came up organically, but then we went down a rabbit hole, and now we’re making it weird. Sorry, guys.”

Lilith scoffs. “It was always weird.”

He never thought he’d be this relieved to hear Vera’s car coming down the driveway, but it has been a fucking weird morning. 

Unfortunately, it’s about to get weirder because Vera Stone is wearing leggings and a t-shirt. And tennis shoes. Her hair is in an honest to god ponytail, under a baseball cap, what was she _doing_ when Randall called her?

She pauses to inspect the dead bear-thing and yells through the window, “Why hasn’t this been loaded onto the truck and moved to the Temple yet?”

Oh, look, they’ve finally managed a synchronized eyeroll...

“Not it,” Randall yells, pushing himself off the couch and only slightly limping outside to join Vera Stone in Casual Clothes. 

She lets out a frustrated sigh at the sight of him, pulling her sunglasses off to level with the full force of her disappointment as she shouts, “I didn’t mean the one who got attacked and killed this stupid thing!”

That’s incredibly kind of her and he should clarify that he only came out here to talk to her, but he’s never seen Vera without makeup before. But the weird part is she really doesn't look that different without it, her eyes are still big and gray and pin you in place, her lips are still full and quick to purse in displeasure, but he thinks he just unlocked a new level of familiarity with Vera and he sort of thought they were as familiar as they were ever going to be. And she obviously came over here without a second thought about her appearance - she's like Hamish, appearance _means_ something to them -, so she must have been worried about him, should he hug Vera? She hugged him at the wedding, but that was obviously a special occasion. Is he allowed to do that again or does he have to get to the next level of familiarity? 

She raises her eyebrows at him. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” he says quickly, “no, just, sorry to interrupt your Saturday morning…”

“Hiking,” she supplies, “and you didn’t. I just finished and I was about to grab breakfast when you called, actually _that_ is something you can apologize for interrupting.”

Aw, man, breakfast is the best. “What were you gonna get?”

“Eggs benedict,” she answers with a sigh. “I’ve been craving it all week but suddenly I find myself without an appetite.”

“My bad,” Randall apologizes and nods at the bear-thing. “Any idea what it is?”

“Any idea if you’re limping from the attack or from -”

“The attack,” he cuts in. “Hamish got it worse but he’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“Healing spell or werewolf healing?”

“Both,” he answers and adds as she kneels down, “I wouldn’t get too close if I was you.”

She ignores him and grabs a stick to prod the bear-thing. He should probably warn her its skin is basically tissue paper and if she pokes too hard it’ll rip straight through, which is exactly what happens but instead of bones, a face stares out at them. 

A human face.


	3. In which there are more questions than answers, tough love, and rough reconciliations...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Thanks for reading so far!
> 
> The child will appear in the next chapter along with the fluff! I know this hasn't been as fluffy as promised up to this point, but stay tuned, kiddos, we're all turning into marshmallows and cinnamon rolls soon. 
> 
> There is a lot of smut here starting after the argument in the car (why do they always argue in the car? should i fix that? whatever, too late) and basically for the rest of the chapter. Also, the first half of the smut is rough (totally consensual! but rough), so if that's concerning or distressing, please skip it!

All the recalling ritual shows is a new POV of what Randall is now calling the werebear attacking them. It’s just Tundra and Greybeard, then Hamish and Randall, blood and broken bones, and nothing. At least that’s what he thinks it showed. It was just as bad seeing Hamish covered in blood projected into thin air from an eyeball as it was seeing it in person, so he can’t watch it past the part where the werebear strikes at him. Instead he stares at his tennis shoes and tries to decide if he needs a new pair. Most people would say he doesn’t because he has, like, twelve pairs of sneakers, but these are his only white pair and they’re getting kind of dingy. Maybe he can put them in the washing machine, at least then he can say he  _ tried _ to clean them before replacing them. 

(For the record, werebears would be totally badass if, one, Randall knew they existed before one tried to kill him and Hamish, and, two, they didn’t look like something that just escaped the third circle of hell while suffering from at least twelve different horrible diseases never before known to man, and, three, they didn’t fall apart so easily.)

Jack bumps him with his shoulder. “It’s over.”

Oh thank god. 

The wearer of their werebear - yes, Randall is proud of that one and, yes, he is dying to say it out loud - is a woman in her twenties or thirties, if Randall had to guess, with no visible trauma to her body, which is impressive given the state of the werebear’s hide. 

They tried to track the werebear’s path through the woods - it wasn’t hard between the damage it left in its path and its funk, even after Lilith’s temper tantrum downpour - but the scent went cold a few miles south, right in the middle of the woods. There were no signs of a backpack, purse, bike, nothing to explain how the woman got there so someone must have been with her. They couldn’t pick on up that trail either, though, so that, plus the recalling incantation, means they’ve got absolutely nothing to work with. 

Hamish sets the eyeball aside, scowling at his fingers as he mumbles, “That was way less informative and more disgusting than I’d hoped for,” and glances around for something to wipe them on. Randall doesn’t like the way he’s eyeing his shirt and takes half a step back. 

“That’s necromancy for you,” Vera says with a sigh as she passes him a hand towel. “Is there any way to track the hide once it goes back to its locker?”

“This one doesn’t work like ours,” Hamish mumbles, frown deepening. “It would have disappeared when she died.”

“Which begs the question,” Gabrielle sighs, glancing around the group, “can anyone wear this thing and turn into…”

“A werebear,” Randall finishes for him. 

Lilith nudges the skin with the toe of her boot. “Maybe if it was in better shape, they could, but Hamish ripped its head off and it looks like it was made out of roadkill. It’s probably a glamour spell on steroids.”

“Regardless of what it is,” Hamish grunts, “I’m more concerned with who our…”

“Werebear wearer?” Randall offers.

Hamish closes his eyes and shakes his head. “How long -”

“All morning, babe. All morning.” 

“I don’t hate it,” Vera admits, amusement sparkling in her eye for the briefest of moments before she turns serious again.

“Don’t encourage him,” Hamish calls after her, but she just flicks her hand towards the mess on the altar to magic it away and goes back to her office. “Anyway, here’s the plan - Jack and Alyssa, go talk to Praxis and see if they recognize  _ this woman, _ ” he looks pointedly at Randall, Randall just rolls his eyes, “and if they’ve had anyone unusually interested in transformation spells, glamours, necromancy, monsters, anything like that. 

“Gabrielle, Lilith, Nicole, you guys go to the Sons of Prometheus and ask if they know her or if they’ve ever seen anything like this."

Randall glances around at everyone nodding and Lilith mumbling to Gabrielle, “You’re showering first,” which gets her a snarl from Midnight before he asks Hamish, “What are we going to do?”

“First we’re going to go to the heads of Praxis to ask a few questions. Then we’ll start researching. Missing persons, anyone who tagged themselves in or near Belgrave at the time of the attack, spells that can potentially make werebears, all of it.”

Jack glances at Alyssa and back at Hamish. “Why don’t we just talk to the heads if -”

“It’s a separate matter,” Hamish says over whatever Jack was about to say in his ‘I’m the boss, don’t question me,’ tone, which he hasn’t used since… a really long time. So that’s weird. “Call or text if you find anything.”

“And when you get there,” Randall adds, swiping the werebear head off the ground to bring to Vera. “And when you leave. Meet us back at the Den when you’re done.”

Alyssa pales at the sight of the head in his hand. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Because you’re pregnant or because it’s gross?” Lilith asks. 

“Both,” she blurts, hand flying to her mouth as she marches to the door. 

Jack asks Randall, “Is she going to do that the whole time she’s pregnant?”

“It usually stops in the second trimester, but weird stuff,” he raises the werebear’s head as an example because it is the weirdest of weird stuff, “might still make her puke. Smells hit different when you’re pregnant.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Jack mumbles, jogging after his girlfriend/the mother-of-his-child. “See you guys later!”

Randall waves, but he forgets he’s still holding the werebear’s head until Gabrielle gags and stomps toward the door, shrieking, “It smells like a dirty jockstrap soaked in swamp water!”

“It’s not like she smells any better,” Lilith says under her breath. 

Randall stares at her. “How do you know what that smells like…?”

Lilith’s face goes completely blank as she leans closer and whispers, “I’ll never tell.”

“OK, there is just too much weird going around today -”

“You started this,” Nicole points out.

“-, so let’s just send the Praxholes an email and -”

“Bye, Hamish, see you back at the house!”

“- work on our blitz attacks while we wait for -”

“Hey, no murder or torture! Questions only, got it?”

“- an actual lead to come through, and then -”

“We'll be on our best behavior,” Nicole assures him. “Promise!”

Lilith rolls her eyes. “You guys are no fun.”

“- we can hunt that, oh, bye, Lilith! Bye Nicole!”

  
Hamish grabs his wrist, “Please stop waving the head around, you’re going to break it.”

“It's detached, Hamish, how much more broken can it -" 

Apparently the top layer of skin can peel right off the hide and the leathery bits will just slop onto the floor. 

Oops.

Hamish rolls his eyes and grabs the rest of the werebear’s hide. “Come on. I need coffee before we do anything.”

(See?)

Randall grabs the skin off the floor and calls after him, “Why are we going to Praxis?”

“I want to ask the co-presidents about Bashmet.”

What the… “Hamish, I check his accounts every week, he’s nowhere near Belgrave.”

“How hard is it to fake a few Instagram posts?”

“Not very,” Randall admits, “but we’d hear ringing non-stop if he was working on stuff like this anywhere near Belgrave.”

“Not if he’s working with someone from the Order again,” he argues with a frustrated sigh. “I know it’s a stretch, but this whole thing sounds similar to what Hemmings was working on, so maybe Bashmet has copies of the research and decided to start from the top.”

Ugh. Hemmings. Fuck that guy. And Bashmet seems more like a convenient explanation than anything, but until they find a reason to take a road trip up north to hunt him down or he makes the mistake of coming back around, he’s their bogeyman. That thing in the shadows that moves if you stare at it long enough, not because there’s anything there but because there might be. Because there was once and once was enough, so maybe this is less about convenience and more about having to be absolutely sure this won’t be a repeat of last time. Maybe Hamish’s “If this goes wrong…” earlier had nothing to do with formalities and everything to do with being just as scared as Randall is that all these years weren’t leading up to their happily ever after, they were just an interlude.

So if Hamish has to ask, if this is what he needs to do to process what happened earlier or just for his own own peace of mind, if he wants to chase shadows, Randall can work with that. “Can I be threatening and scary and shit?”

“You can try,” Hamish replies magnanimously, but his smile is nothing but warm and grateful so Randall will let that one slide. 

The doors wave open before them and Vera asks, without looking up from the book she is scanning, “Am I to assume no news on certain fronts is bad news and therefore not to be discussed?”

Yes, and even though Vera is the Dumbledore to their miscellaneous Hogwarts students, or maybe the Yondu to their Guardians of the Galaxy - wait, she had sex with Hamish, ugh, too weird, never mind. The point is, she’s close to them so she deserves an explanation, but Randall doesn’t want to talk about it. He just wants to set both pieces of the werebear’s head down on the table and get down to scaring Praxholes. And battle tactics. And researching. And snacks. 

Hamish, being the world’s best husband that he is, sets the hide down and lightly touches Randall’s back as he tells Vera, “I’ll catch you up on Monday.”

Her eyes flick up at them and dart back down too quickly for Randall to guess at her assessment of Hamish’s statement, but she replies in a light voice, “For what it’s worth, I’m looking much more forward to supervising your hellion when the time comes than the progeny of Mr. Morton and Miss Drake. Their union has brought nothing but chaos to my life and I have no doubt their offspring will do the same. Yours at least promises to be well-read and mildly entertaining.”

There was a compliment in there somewhere, Randall just isn’t sure what it was. “Thanks, Vera. Sorry again about your breakfast.”

“Your husband can make it up to me by buying lunch on Monday while we work on fixing whatever misunderstanding is delaying your adventure into parenthood and robbing me the joy of watching the two of you attempt to raise a child without sacrificing sleep, sex, sanity, and everything else you hold so dear.” 

Randall takes back every awful thing he’s ever said about Vera Stone.

* * *

One massive black coffee - 

> “Why do you hate yourself?”
> 
> “Randall…”
> 
> “It’s eighty-something degrees outside, at least get it iced.” 
> 
> “I should have left you in the car.” 

-, a reasonably sized  iced latte - 

> “You know there’s more milk in that than anything, right?”
> 
> “Yeah, that’s why it doesn’t taste like scalded hearts and broken dreams.” 

-, four ham and cheese croissants - 

> “Hey, it’s a -”, 
> 
> “Yeah, yeah, very funny, now hush and drink your coffee-flavored milk.” 
> 
> “You hush and drink your coffee-flavored sadness.”
> 
> “Why did I marry you?”
> 
> “Because I’m hot, I feed you, I make you laugh, and I put out?”
> 
> “... you forgot head scratches, but yes. All of that.”

\- and three very amused baristas later, Randall and Hamish pull into the parking lot of an elementary school turned ‘consulting offices and event rental space,’ which is code for Praxis headquarters. It still looks like a school and feels like a school when you walk in, probably because everyone milling about is studying magic or practicing magic or here to inquire about studying magic. 

Praxis has taken what Randall likes to call the ‘Fight Club’ approach to growing its numbers - they don’t do the coffee shop thing Foley pulled or hand out business cards anymore, it’s all whispers and secrets, and if you’re smart enough to follow the breadcrumbs and find them, you can stay. The premise is, you’re only going to see it through if you’re committed or desperate, and the latter don’t last long before they get memory-wiped or hunted down which, surprisingly, doesn’t happen often anymore.

Randall is still fuzzy on who exactly is in charge of Praxis because they operate as something like a mini-Council with weird titles, but he usually deals with one of two people - Lucia from ‘records’ or Dan from ‘security.’ He’s betting Alyssa and Jack are already talking to Lucia as Hamish leads them further down the hall and, presumably, higher up the chain of command. 

“You want silent and glarey or can Greybeard get in on this?” Randall asks, pausing to shoot the balled up parchment paper from the last croissant into a trashcan. “Score!”

The corner of Hamish’s lip ticks up as he shrugs. “Have fun with it.”

That’s probably a mistake, but Hamish is about to knock on the door so Randall just schools his expression into something more neutral. Greybeard’s pretty stoked, too, which he demonstrates by raking his claws down the door, light enough not to leave a mark but hard enough that they make a satisfying  _ shlick _ sound - they  never get to threaten people anymore, medicine is such a fluffy occupation… whoa, hey, medicine is hard and there’s blood and gross stuff all the time! - and throws the door open.

The three presidents of Praxis turn out to be a young woman with half of her blue hair shaved off and two nose rings, a man with the gnarliest beard Randall’s ever seen - we’re talking major Gandalf vibes -, and a guy Randall strongly thinks he’s seen on a billboard or a cologne ad. What all three of them have in common, however, is the varying degrees of shock on their face at the sight of Hamish, who helps himself to a seat at the table, and Randall, who drags Greybeard’s claws over the wall as he follows to stand at his shoulder. 

“Magus,” Slightly Younger Gandalf greets, blinking like he thinks he’s hallucinating. “What brings -”

“When’s the last time any of you heard from Gregory Bashmet?” Hamish asks in a cool, casual voice like he’s just making small talk, but there’s ice laced in his tone.

Supermodel raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Bashmet? He’s still in the Yukon pretending to be a caveman.”

“Can you confirm that?” Hamish asks. 

“Just as well as you can,” he retorts. “He posted a pic two days ago from a hot spring or something.”

“What about his wife?”

“She’s in a post from two weeks ago,” Blue Hair answers, shaking her head. “What is this about?”

Hamish pulls up some photos on his phone and slides it onto the conference table. “This thing showed up at our door this morning.”

Blue Hair’s jaw drops. “What the fuck is that?”

Don’t say werebear, (werebear!) don’t say it, (werebear!) don’t say it… 

Hamish throws him a warning glance - yeah, he knows not to say it, sheesh - and replies, “We don’t know, but it bears similarities to the research preceding Bashmet’s attack.”

Don’t laugh at the bear pun, don’t laugh at the bear pun! 

Is Hamish making this difficult on purpose?

“Wasn’t it one of yours who orchestrated that whole mess?” Supermodel asks. 

Before Hamish can answer, Greybeard gnashes his teeth at him and  Supermodel looks like he just sat on a cactus. Guess he’s never seen werewolf teeth before, that’s refreshing and adorable. 

Slightly Younger Gandalf clears his throat and stands. “You must be the husband. I’m Nigel, this is Kala and Jamal.”

Randall lets his eyes flick over the other two, clocking their reactions - Jamal is still about to piss himself, Kala smiles weakly - before they settle back on Nigel. “I’d say, ‘Nice to meet you,’ but under the circumstances…”

“Of course,” Nigel agrees, nodding, “and please accept my apologies for past transgressions, but whatever this is, I promise you it has nothing to do with Praxis.”

He seems sincere and genuinely troubled. So does Kala, swiping through the photos and blowing them up with a grossed out look on her face. Jamal looks straight up mortified. None of them smell panicked or pissed or anything beyond a reasonable amount of shaken up.

Randall motions for Kala to hand over the phone before she can get to photos that don’t concern her. “Does the woman look familiar?”

She shakes her head. “You can check with Lucia, she’d know for sure.”

“We already are,” Hamish assures her as he takes the phone from Randall. “So, Bashmet and his wife. No contact at all?”

“None,” Jamal confirms.

“Is there anyone you can think of who Bashmet might try to contact?” 

“You guys cleaned house pretty well after all of that,” Kala points out, tapping her knuckles against the table. “We can look into it and let you know, but I don’t think there’s anyone around who would remember him.”

She makes a fair point. It’s been years since Travenner tried to sever Hamish and Bashmet was basically exiled pending execution by werewolf. Anyone who contacts him or gets contacted by him without telling the Knights has been promised the same fate, and nothing here tells Randall these guys are involved. Knowingly involved, anyway. 

“If I may,” Nigel cuts in, “is there any reason to believe this was a targeted attack?”

“Why the curiosity?” Randall asks sharply. 

“I am simply wondering if there is cause for a greater sense of alarm, that is all, I assure you. If there is reason to believe we might have a common enemy, I would like to be prepared.”

Hamish’s hand brushes against his leg - appreciative, not reproachful, if he wanted Randall to back off, his touch would be firmer - as he shifts in his chair. “I would steer clear of the woods for the time being. We’ll let you know as soon as we find anything out.”

“We’ll let you know what we find, too,” Kala offers. “And no one will go anywhere near the woods or Belgrave unless it’s on official business.”

Hamish nods and stands, curling a hand around Randall’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

Greybeard gives everyone one last glare, even though there’s almost no way they’re involved, and Randall warns them, “Anyone who comes into our woods isn’t coming back out,” as Hamish leads him out the door and down the hallway.

Once they reach an empty portion of the hallway, Hamish whispers into his ear, “Very nice."

“Thanks, “ Randall whispers back with a light kiss to his cheek. “I didn’t get any bad vibes off of them. You still think they know something?”

Hamish’s brow knits as he considers the question. “No, but I’m not ruling Bashmet out yet. We need to go back to Travenner’s research and see if we missed anything. Plus we never looked into Hemmings’s assistant, that one who picked you up at the bar, what was her name?”

Are they just going to drag up every bad thing in Randall’s past today? Is that what this is going to be? Is there just no salvaging this day?

  
He bites back a sigh and mumbles, “Ruby Speers.”

“Right, so we’ll look into her, maybe she had friends who knew what she was working on or something. Do you remember where she lived?”

“Nope, all I remember is leaving the bar and making out for a while.”

Hamish mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, “She wasn’t that attractive,” before continuing with his thinking out loud, “It’s possible Bashmet saw her name and tracked down her research. She could have been working her own angle on the monster army.”

Randall elbows him. “Can we go back to the ‘she wasn’t attractive’ comment?”

“She wasn’t,” Hamish replies dismissively. “You only noticed her because your ‘damsel in distress’ radar went off.”

Oh this is too good. They’ve just uncovered a whole new level of petty for Hamish - retroactive jealousy. 

“She was totally my type,” Randall insists, pulling Hamish under the stairwell for some privacy so he can cross his arms behind Hamish’s neck. “Pretty. Super smart. Does that sound familiar?”

“Maybe,” Hamish muses, "but she was evil.”

“You’re a little evil, but would you feel better if I told you you’re a better kisser?”

“I might.”

“You’re a better kisser,” Randall assures him. But maybe he should test that real quick, so he plants a quick kiss on Hamish’s lips and, yepp, definitely better. “It’s really cute when you get jealous.”

“I’m not jealous, I’m possessive,” Hamish corrects.

  
He’s ridiculous is what he is, but they can go with ‘possessive’. Randall digs it either way. He also really digs the way Hamish’s thumb sneaks under his shirt to brush over his hip bone. It would seem flirty if he wasn’t already back to contemplating the situation at hand. He’s more relaxed about it, though. He’s not rapid-firing questions and persons-of-interest and running through all the ways this can go back to a known threat instead of a new one. It’s just easier that way, Randall guesses, and he doesn’t want to be the one to break it to Hamish that there is a seventy-ish percent chance this is a whole new fight. He’s not thrilled about it either, not after spending years in a relative calm and right before they start a family, but this going back to Bashmet or Travenner or Hemmings just doesn’t add up. 

He nuzzles up the bridge of Hamish’s nose and kisses his forehead, like he can slow the racing thoughts and worst-case scenarios swirling around in his husband’s mind. It might actually work, too, because Hamish sighs, deep and hard, and his fingers dig into his hips in a quick, hard squeeze as he pulls him closer. 

“If it’s Bashmet,” Hamish says quietly, “I’m going to skin him alive."

Randall shivers and he’s not sure if it’s because of what Hamish said or because he just pulled him even closer, like even the slightest bit of air between their bodies is too much. Or both, or maybe it’s because his hands slide to his back and press him tight against him, the way their bodies close and their faces closer so when Randall whispers back, “We’ll watch this time,” his lips brush over Hamish’s.

It’s hard to say how much of Hamish’s answering grin is his and how much is Tundra’s, but then who’s to say if that’s Randall’s heart skipping a beat or Greybeard’s? He knows the mouth moving against his is Hamish’s, and the hands sliding up the back of his shirt are Hamish’s, and the throat clearing somewhere to their right is Jack’s, whoa, hey, wait, how did he and Alyssa sneak up on them?

However they did it, Jack is leaning against the wall, shaking his head at them with a similarly amused Alyssa standing at his side as she whisper-shouts, “You’re supposed to make out under the bleachers, not the stairs.”

“Too cliché,” Hamish dismisses, gently lowering Randall’s arms from his neck. “What did Lucia say?”

“No new prospects or students in the past two months, no missing members, and she doesn’t recognize the woman,” Jack replies. “We sent her the photo so she can ask around, but I don’t think we’re going to get any hits.”

No surprises there, but it would have been nice to clear this up quickly. 

Randall asks Alyssa, “Feeling better?”

“Much!” She sags against Jack and rubs a hand over her lower stomach. “What did you guys find?”

“Nothing concrete, but,” Hamish glances at Randall and back at them, “I think Bashmet is involved. Or someone who worked with Hemmings.”

Jack straightens up at that. “Why?”

“Someone tried to make a hide, it lines up exactly with both of their motives.”

“We don’t know for sure if someone made that thing.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Randall points out, mouthing ‘Let it go,’ to Jack and Alyssa, “so we have to consider everything until we can start ruling things out. You guys wanna look for werebear spells or go through the stuff we pulled from Travenner’s place?”

Alyssa and Jack have a silent conversation consisting of nothing but raised eyebrows, scrunched noses, and tilting heads that Randall can’t follow at all. Hamish’s confused expression tells him he is just as lost. 

  
Somehow in the midst of that, though, they come to Jack’s announced decision of, “Spells. We’ll meet you back at the Den when the girls get back.”

“Great,” Randall replies, slinging an arm around Hamish’s shoulders to steer them toward the car. “We’ll see you later. Go team!”

Once they get to the car, Randall checks his phone to see if they’ve gotten an update from the girls but they only left twenty minutes ago. They could probably catch up with them if they drive fast enough, but Hamish insists,   
They'll be fine, Randall. Nicole and Lilith will talk to Xavier, Gabrielle will sniff around and flirt with a few farmer boys to see if there's anything Xavier doesn't know about, and they will come home starving and demanding we feed them."

“I know, I just feel bad we’re not doing more.”

“You do realize once we have a kid, we won’t be the ones going out for this stuff, right?”

“I realize we won’t be doing as much of it, yes.” Hamish snorts at that, shaking his head. “What? We have to do some of it. Jack and Alyssa are going to have a baby, too. And Gabrielle is in med school, and Lilith has a life.”

“What about our lives?”

“Where is this coming from?” Randall fires back, twisting in his seat to look at Hamish. “Do you want out?”

“Of course not,” Hamish snaps. “Randall, things like this don’t happen very often anymore. That’s why everyone moved out, we can finally move on with other parts of our lives besides being Knights.”

“But we are Knights,” Randall argues. “We swore to -”

“That’s not all we are.” 

Who is this and what has he done with Hamish Duke…? 

“Randall, when we hear ringing and drop everything to chase it down, our kid isn’t going to understand we’re trying to protect them and our friends and the whole goddamn world. All they will know is that one of us is running out the door and they don’t know if we’re coming back."

That’s a low fucking blow. The fact that Hamish doesn’t even glance at him when he says it makes it worse, that he just says it and stares out at the intersection while they wait for the light to change, like that’s it. That just settles everything, like they weren’t arguing for hours about who was going to stay and who was going to go a few weeks ago. 

Randall settles back into his seat and says under his breath, “Guess you won’t mind if I handle the ringing then.”

“ _ That’s _ what you got out of that?” Hamish cries, throwing his hands up. “Do you want to have a family?” 

“How can you ask me that?”

“Because you just picked being a Knight over -”

“No, I picked something happening to me over something happening to you or anyone else,” Randall snaps, “including our kid. I’m sorry if that makes me a bad dad or husband or whatever the hell it is you think I’m -”

“I did not say that.”

“ - messing up. How about neither of us go, Hamish? How about we just stay home and pretend it isn’t happening?”

“How about we let Lilith or Gabrielle handle it? How about we rotate as a group and not just between the two of us? How about we-”

“You think Greybeard and Tundra are going to roll with that?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t aware you were having issues with Greybeard.”

Can Randall walk the rest of the way to the Den? There’s a water main break so they had to take a weird detour. Is there another light before they hit the highway where he can get out and take an Uber? No? Great. This day is just so great. 

He forces himself to take a breath and say, as neutrally as he can, “I know you think this is just Bashmet and once we get rid of him, all our problems will be solved, but this stuff isn’t going to stop just because we move on.”

“No, there are just three other Knights, not to mention the entire Order who can handle this ‘stuff’ once in a while, but if it means that much to you, fine. Handle the ringing. Handle all of it.”

That’s not… that’s not what Randall is saying at all. Shit. 

“I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose anyone, but especially you. You’re my favorite.” Hamish doesn’t spare him a glance, not a hint of a smile, he barely blinks, so if you’re wondering how bad Randall fucked up, the answer is big time. “I don’t care about the ringing, Hamish, I’m scared to death of something happening to you. I love you more than anything and I want our kid to have you around as long as possible, that’s it. And I’m scared that something bad is going to happen to our friends because I wasn’t there to stop it.”

Hamish’s eyes finally flick toward him before returning to the road. That’s a good sign. Maybe if  Randall reaches to curl his hand over Hamish’s knee, he’ll thaw out the rest of the way, but he doesn’t react. It’s like the touch doesn’t even register. 

He pulls his hand away and goes back to staring out the window. Maybe Hamish just wants to be mad for a while. Or hurt. Hurt is worse, but valid. It was a shitty thing to say. And Hamish was right, Randall just didn’t like hearing it. So maybe Randall didn’t apologize for the right thing. Maybe he’s upset about the situation entirely because how messed up is that they have to decide who might die fighting bad magic while the other one waits up at home? It’s exactly what Randall is trying to avoid, he can’t blame Hamish for doing the same. Maybe he should say that. 

But when he looks over at Hamish and tries to figure out what to say or how to fix this, when Hamish doesn’t jump in to say something first or shake his head or even acknowledge that Randall is looking at him, the words die on the tip of his tongue. 

The rest of the drive is silent. Quick, but silent as they cut through a subdivision lined with cookie cutter houses and bright green lawns probably closed off with invisible fences and minivans and SUVs in the driveways with ‘My kid’s an honor student…’ and monogrammed bumper stickers. Bikes propped against garage doors and chalk on the sidewalk - way to rub it in, universe, thanks a fucking lot - and finally they turn onto the road that eventually forks to lead deeper into campus or into the woods.

The car rolls to a stop outside the house and neither of them move to get out, even though everyone is waiting for them. Randall scrubs a hand over his face and starts to try apologizing again but Hamish leans across the console and rests his forehead against Randall’s temple and whispers, “I love you, and I’m scared, too, but mostly that I won’t be able to do this without you. You’re so goddamn protective of everyone, and I love that about you, Randall, but it terrifies me.”

Randall turns so their foreheads meet and curls a hand around the back of Hamish’s neck. “You did too good of a job hammering that oath into my head.”

“No, you take the ‘knight’ part of the title too seriously,” Hamish argues but there’s no heat to his words. “I’m sorry I questioned how bad you want this. I know you do.”

“I’m sorry, too. You were right about all of it.”

“How shocking…”

“Hey,” Randall bumps his forehead harder against Hamish’s, “I’m trying to apologize.”

“Sorry,” Hamish chuckles, covering Randall’s hand with his. “We’ll make a plan. A real one. With everyone’s input so we're all on the same page, and no games. Deal?”

“Deal,” Randall agrees. They seal it with a kiss like they always do, but this one is more charged from the argument and feelings laid bare. So Randall kisses him again, harder, and chases it with, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Hamish says in a rush of breath right before he leans in again.

This time neither of them pull away. If Hamish were to try, and it doesn’t feel like wants to, Randall doesn’t think he will because the kisses get faster and harder, the intensity skyrockets in a blink, but if Hamish were to stop right now, Randall would scream because everything’s too raw. The past two days were too much, the news about the adoption, the attack this morning, their stolen moments constantly getting interrupted, their whole lives getting interrupted.

It’s too much, it’s all too much. He promised his life to ‘the cause’, fuck the cause, fuck magic, the only promises he wants to keep are the ones he made to Hamish - however long they get, all his days for the rest of his life - and his friends - he’ll be the brave one, he’ll protect them, he’ll fight at their side -, and it’s too much, but it’s everything. He could no sooner let it go than he could stop Hamish from dragging him into the backseat of the car and onto his lap, and it’ll work, they’ll make it work, they always do, but right now it’s too much. The fighting is too much, the hot air in this car is too much - Hamish tears his shirt off and attacks his neck with biting kisses, drags his teeth over his scar and fire explodes in his core -, Hamish’s fucking clothes are too much - he leans back to rip his shirt open and rakes his hands down his chest, over his muscled stomach to undo his fly -, the fact that they’re doing this in the goddamn car when their house is fifteen feet away is too much. 

But he can’t stop. 

He pries Hamish’s hand from his hip and sucks two of his fingers into his mouth, moaning like it’s the real thing, Hamish groans, long and ragged, and his eyes flash like it’s the real thing. 

And he moans for real when Hamish yanks his shorts down and swipes his thumb over his slit, spreading precum over him and working him in long, firm strokes. 

And the fingers are gone from his mouth and they’re kissing again and the fingers are back but now they’re pressing against him and he whimpers into Hamish’s mouth but he rocks down on his hand and this is too much, the stretch is too much, the burn is too much, the scale is tipping too far toward pain than pleasure. But there  _ is _ pleasure and he chases it, hissing through his teeth, burying his face in the curve of Hamish’s neck and shuddering. 

When Hamish asks, “Too much?” his voice is rough, heavy like he’s the one getting fingered and jerked off. Like he thinks it is and they should stop but he doesn’t want to.

Randall doesn’t want to stop. He shakes his head and mouths at Hamish’s scar so he’ll know it hurts but it feels so fucking good, too. So he’ll crook his fingers just right and it’ll feel even better, it’ll feel like lightning shooting up his spine and he’ll stop touching Randall’s dick and start working his own. 

When the fingers leave again, he barely gets a chance to adjust to the empty feeling before Hamish pushes in, hard because that’s the only way this is happening and the pleasure spikes into something so sharp his head spins, but he presses his lips to Hamish’s ear and begs, “Don’t stop,” and Hamish doesn’t. Or can’t, maybe he can’t stop either, fingers digging painfully into his hips and raking up his back as he drives into him, punching the air out of his lungs in loud, choked out sounds, dragging an orgasm out of him before he even realizes how close he is. A harsh, body wracking orgasm that has him shuddering and tensing and bearing down so hard that it forces Hamish over the edge, too, and every screaming, raw-edged nerve, every fear and hurt and worry goes quiet. 

He slumps forward till his forehead hits the headrest, arms wrapping around Hamish’s neck in a loose hold while fingers stroke down his spine. They’re both covered in sweat and the car reeks of it, sweat and sex, it’s going to smell like sex in here for days. He’ll be texting Hamish on Monday morning something to the effect of,  _ I had a hard-on the whole drive to the gym and work, _ and it’ll start a whole, long series of flirty messages until he gets home from work and tackles Hamish to the couch. 

“You OK?” Hamish asks softly. 

“Mhmm,” he hums, turning to lick a bead of sweat dripping down behind Hamish’s ear. “Wham, bam, thank you, Ham.”

“Was that English? Am I supposed to know what any of that means?” He jabs a finger between Randall’s ribs, forcing a laugh out of Randall. “Did I literally fuck your brains out?”

“Come on, that was a good one!”

“It was appropriate given the context,” Hamish concedes as he drops a line of kisses along Randall’s shoulders. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too.” Randall leans back so he can look at him, flushed and covered in sweat, hair sticking to his forehead so he pushes it back. “We should have car sex more often."

“Yes, but I’m hiding lube under the seat for next time.”

“And we won’t fight first next time. Or rip each other’s clothes.”

Hamish snorts. “Speak for yourself, I loved that part.”

The part when Randall ripped his shirt off or the part where he ripped Randall’s shirt off? Probably when he ripped Randall’s shirt off, Hamish hates his clothes, but before he can ask, Hamish opens the door and pulls Randall toward the house, where Randall will take a quick shower and grab his laptop and, wow, the air conditioning feels amazing. He should save the water for later and just veg out on the couch for a minute. Come down from his rough sex high. Literally cool off. Then he can get his laptop and research like a boss. A relaxed, pleasantly chilled boss. On the couch which feels like the cool side of the pillow all over his body. 

Hamish stares down at him with an unimpressed look on his face. “You just got mad at me because you didn’t think you were doing enough and now you’re literally laying here doing nothing.”

“I know, I know, I'm an asshole, but it feels so good to just lay here,” he groans. “Come try it.”

“You just want to take a nap and you’re trying to trick me into taking one so you won’t feel bad about slacking off.”

Randall frowns up at him. “I wasn’t, but now I’m thinking about it.”

“Randall,” he groans, dropping onto the couch like he just can’t handle the weight of Randall’s bullshit. “Oh, wow, this is nice.”

“See?” Randall pokes his cheek. “I told you so.”

Hamish ignores him in favor of taking a long, deep breath as his eyes slip closed.

Randall pokes him again. “No napping, you said so.”

He’d be more convinced his antics aren’t bothering Hamish if his lip would stop twitching. 

“Hamish.” 

Poke. 

“Hamster.” 

Poke. 

“Sweet Home AlaHama.” 

Hamish moves like a viper, snatching Randall’s hand and rolling on top of him to hover over him, expression wavering between calculating and fond as his eyes travel down from Randall’s face to his body. “What do you want?”

Ooh, decisions, decisions… “Kiss me.”

“Where?”

Randall smiles. “Anywhere you want.”

Hamish dips his head so low Randall can taste his breath and he’s so sure Hamish is going to kiss him on the lips that he starts to close his eyes, but he slips further down his body. He skips over Randall’s neck, even though he tips his head back, and he nuzzles over his scar but doesn’t stop there, either. There’s barely an inch of space between his lips and Randall’s body, he feels every breath Hamish inhales and releases like sparks dancing over his skin, but his eyes never leave Randall’s, staring with an intensity that makes the spark catch fire and he’s aching for Hamish to touch him. Again, like they didn’t just do this, and more. He wants him to suck bruises onto his throat and chest and all over his stomach and the inside of his thighs, leave teeth marks all over him, he wants finger-shaped bruises on his hips and his wrists, and he wants all of it, more and more the lower Hamish moves over his body. 

It must show on his face, or maybe the way he’s breathing faster, because Hamish’s eyes flash and Randall gets part of his wish, fingers digging into the underside of his thighs and pulling him closer as Hamish sits up. The noise he makes might qualify as a yelp, and the next one is definitely a whimper because Hamish hooks his legs over his shoulder and turns his head and presses a gentle, lingering kiss to what’s left of the bite on his leg. There’s barely a smudge of a bruise left, the puncture marks are gone, it doesn’t even hurt but Hamish knows every inch of his body like it’s his own so he finds it with no problem and kisses it like he can make it disappear. Staking his claim -  _ yoursyoursyours _ \- because he’s the only one who gets to mark Randall up and kiss him and turn his skin to fire and make his stomach drop and his breath catch, and all he has to do is touch his lips to his skin to make it happen. 

Hamish rubs his cheek over the spot he just kissed, eyes darting to Randall’s. “What else?”

Words. Right. Hamish wants him to use words. Randall knows words. Lots of them. But words are hard when Hamish is stroking up and down his thighs, nowhere close to where he wants Hamish’s fingers but it’s a touch all the same and it captures all of Randall’s focus.

“Kiss me again,” he breathes. “Anywhere.”

Hamish smiles and reaches for Randall’s hand and kisses his palm, just the lightest brush of lips against his skin. 

A fresh wave of heat curls in the pit of Randall’s stomach as Hamish drags his mouth over the veins of his wrist, teeth grazing the thin skin stretching over the inside of his arm. He guides Randall’s arm around his shoulders and leans down to kiss him, hard and deep but he pulls back to whisper, “I love you so much,” and he nudges Randall’s head back so he can mouth at his throat and murmur against his skin, “You’re the best thing in my life.” 

  
All the breath in Randall’s lungs escapes in a shaky, bitten out, “Hamish…” when his husband’s hips settle between his, feels he’s hard again and the heat in the pit of his stomach flares, blazes so hot he feels it at the base of his spine when Hamish presses inside of him again. It doesn’t hurt, it’s not like earlier, it’s more of a slow burn, a delicious, warm ache, but he tangles his fingers in Hamish’s hair and digs his nails into the meat of his shoulder all the same. Maybe Hamish thinks it hurts, maybe that’s why he’s rocking into him so slowly, and Randall should tell him it feels good, he should, he should press his lips to Hamish’s ear and try to make words come out of his mouth, but all he manages are gasps and moans until Hamish asks, “Good?”

He tries to nod but he should have known Hamish wouldn’t settle for that - Hamish is a goddamn menace - and stop, like it’s not good, like it’s ever been anything other than good, like it’s gotten stale or boring or predictable in all the years they’ve been together. 

Randall can’t help the whines that comes out or how desperate he sounds when he gasps, “Hamish, please,” into his ear. And that gets him not just moving again, it gets a hand on his face, turning his head and holding him still so Hamish can kiss him, long and slow and soft. There’s a hint of a smile in his kiss and Randall chases it, bumps their noses together and nips at his lip till a shuddery laugh bursts from Hamish’s lips. 

“So bratty.”

Randall shakes his head, has to bite his lip when Hamish’s thrusts get harder. “My husband is just a really good fu- ah!”

Hamish’s mouth latches onto his neck, growling against his skin, “Say that again.”

“My husband,” Randall breathes and pulls Hamish’s hair until he lifts his head and licks over his scar - Hamish’s hips stutter but he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t speed up or slow down, he just keeps fucking into him hard and deep and,  _ fuck _ ! “My husband, my husband, my - Hamish!”

He thinks Hamish growls again but it’s hard to say because he cries out when teeth scrape over his own scar, when the heat crests and washes over him, when it never seems to stop because Hamish doesn’t stop, it just keeps building, wave after wave until he’s shaking and just before it’s too much, right as he’s about to tell Hamish he can’t take anymore, he comes with a ragged, drawn own growl he buries against Randall’s lips, like Randall pulled it out of him and now he’s taking it back. 

And Randall keeps kissing him, licks over the seam of his lips and traces his teeth with his tongue, and Hamish bites his bottom lip and sucks on his tongue and covers his mouth with his, and Randall murmurs in the space between them, “My husband.”

Hamish stares down at him, fingers stroking over his cheekbones and the line of his jaw, brushing over his lips as he whispers it back, “My husband.”


	4. In which everything changes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feels. 
> 
> So. Many. Feels. 
> 
> Also, it's a little dark and twisty for a minute, but mostly it's fluffy. 
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!!!!

The dining room table is covered in laptops - Randall’s, Hamish’s, and Jack’s -, grimoires, the demon book - Lilith made Randall hold it for thirty seconds to prove it wasn’t going to spontaneously turn the Den into a portal to hell -, stacks of papers streaked with all shades of highlighter and littered with post-its, five pizzas, three orders of hot wings, breadsticks, and somewhere between five and eleven drinks that belong to everyone now, everyone is drinking out of all of them as they pass except Hamish, who sniffs them until he finds one that isn’t spiked and that becomes his new drink.

The Sons of Prometheus didn’t have much to offer except some ancient potions books that might have something of interest and a few phone numbers for Gabrielle, so once the girls got back, everyone went into research mode and they only paused to pay the delivery guy. 

Alyssa points at the book in her hand with her breadstick and asks no one in particular, “Are we sure it’s a bear or could it have been a seal?”

“Definitely not a seal,” Randall replies without looking up from the millionth page of missing persons. “Four legs. Why?”

“Selkies take off their skins when they want to spend time as a human,” she answers around a mouthful of food. 

Is Randall supposed to know what a selkie is? Did he zone out in Order 103: Magical Creatures? Wait. How many magical creatures are out there? There’s them, leprechauns, now werebears and selkies… holy shit, are dragons real? Can he train one? Can he ride it to work? Would it eat their kid if he brought it home? 

Jack looks just as lost as he is, maybe he was too busy plotting murderous revenge with Midnight when this was all being discussed, and Randall suspects Lilith doesn’t know what they’re talking about and she’s just really good at showing it. Gabrielle isn't paying attention, she's been excused from werebear research so she can study - they voted. It was unanimous. 

Alyssa finally takes pity on them. “Selkies are seal people. They can take off their seal skins and be humans or put them on and go back to the sea to be seals.”

“Can elephant seals be selkies?” Hamish asks, smirking at Randall as he pulls another file out of the Travenner box. 

Oblivious to the joke that is Randall’s life, Alyssa hums and mumbles, “It doesn’t say. Oh, wait, they don’t separate when they die, they just stay in whatever form they were in. Never mind.”

“There have been no bear sightings near campus… ever,” Nicole announces as she closes her laptop. “Probably because of you guys. Off campus, they’re pretty common.”

“What about hunting or poaching?” Hamish asks. “Car accidents? Anything that would explain how someone got a bear hide?” 

“Nothing newsworthy.”

This is such a nightmare. 

They don’t even know what they’re looking for. Alyssa is looking up magical creatures and monsters, Jack is still looking for spells, Nicole is looking for bear stuff, Lilith is going through Hemmings’s stuff from the Travenner pile, Hamish is going through Travenner’s stuff from Travenner’s pile, Randall is trolling the internet, they have been at this for hours, and they’ve come up with absolutely nothing. 

He goes back to Bashmet’s Instagram - oh, look, a new photo of him and his wife sitting by the lake, how quaint and adorable and not anywhere close to Belgrave -, just to break the monotony more than anything. It’s all just photos of him and his wife living their best wilderness adventure and doing whatever it is they’re doing up north. He probably sees bears all the time. Too bad he won’t get eaten by one. Not that it would solve their werebear problem but it would make Randall feel better. It would probably make Hamish feel better, too. Or it would make him mad because he wants to be the one to kill him. Oh well, it would still be funny.

Bashmet doesn’t have a lot of followers but he is following a shit-ton of accounts. Foodie magazines, lumberjacks, random people he probably went to high school or college with, Kala from Praxis, oh, hey, she has one of those fluffy cats with the smooshed faces, that’s adorable, parenting blogs - do not throw the phone, do not throw the phone, do not… -, a taxidermist, more food stuff, Jamal from… whoa, whoa, whoa.

A taxidermist?

Why the hell would Bashmet follow a taxidermist?

Randall clicks on the profile and it’s mostly time lapse videos, mostly it’s deer or moose heads, mostly just hands molding mounts and stretching skin to cover them in the videos but he finally scrolls down far enough to find a selfie and if it’s not their werebear wearer, it’s her twin sister of her clone or some other weird science fiction bullshit. 

He goes back and clicks through the videos, and Bashmet has liked or commented on every. Single. One. 

And she replies to all of them, she even tagged him in a video from a couple of weeks ago and captioned it with,  _ Thanks @grgbshmt for the hides! This will be such a fun project :) _

Holy. Fucking. Shit. 

“Found her!” He holds the phone up and waves it in front of Hamish till he takes it and says to the others, “Elena Pineau, working on a ‘fun project’ with Bashmet, lots of animal skins involved.”

Lilith dives around the table and yanks Hamish’s hand down to see, eyes going wide. “Nicole, don’t look.”

“What?” she scoffs. “Why can’t I - aw, no, that’s Bambi’s mom…”

He waits for Hamish to say he told everyone so, to smirk with even a hint of a smirk but he just clenches his jaw and passes the phone to Jack so he and Alyssa can look. Randall thought he’d at least be glad they found something, even if it has nothing to do with him being right, but he grabs the back of Randall’s chair and leans down, jerking his chin towards the laptop and instructs him in a low voice, “Get an address.”

“You OK?” Randall asks.

“I want to finish this.”

If he keeps using his murder voice, they’re going to be finishing something, alright. Right on the dining room table, sorry to whoever doesn’t leave the room fast enough. But for now he just shivers and keeps that thought to himself as he navigates through the city’s property records. 

  
  


* * *

Elena Pineau’s house is cute. Two stories, an open layout on the first floor unless she’s done some major renovations in the four years since it was last on the market, a half-finished walk out basement. Tall, white privacy fence. Rose bushes in the front yard. 

It would be even cuter if it didn’t reek of blood. 

Randall did some quick reading on taxidermy on the drive over. They don’t kill the animals or do anything with the bodies. They just skin them once they’re dead. There’s no reason her house should smell so strongly of blood that it hits him as soon as he gets out of the car. 

It has to be a lot of blood for him to smell it all the way out here. 

If there’s a silver lining, it’s not fresh blood. Maybe… a few weeks old, if he had to guess. It’s hard to say, he’s mostly only been around fresh blood, but this smells stale. Dry. It doesn’t pique Greybeard’s hunger as much as it rankles him. Sets him pacing, prowling as Randall glances around to make sure no one sees him stalk around the side of the house - no lights except the kitchen, no dog that he can smell or hear, no TVs playing in the basement, just a few random nightlights from what he can see through the windows - and texts the group  _ All clear, going in _ .

He lets himself in through the back gate and throws a quick, “ _ Aperiatur _ ” at the back door and the smell that hits him as he opens the door nearly sends him stumbling back - blood and bleach and fear, the fear is what gives him pause because how scared does someone have to be that it clings to carpet and radiates from the walls? 

Greybeard pulls him towards the basement but they’ve got to let everyone in first, pal. And no wandering off without telling the husbands. 

He catches a whiff of something as he passes, though. Something… never mind, door first. Searching next, ransacking third. 

But that smell makes Greybeard’s chest feel tight, the way it feels right before he throws his head back and howls, long and low into the night like when they used to run and hunt on their own. Just for Randall to blow off steam and keep an eye on things while the others were busy. They’re never alone anymore, though, so why does he… 

His phone buzzes. 

Door. Right. Get the door. 

He tears himself away from the steps leading to the basement and turns the lock on the front door with a sharp twist of his hand. 

Hamish steps through, followed closely by Lilith and Nicole. Before Randall can ask about the other two, he hears the clink of the back gate and shuffling footsteps as they rush through. 

“Smells like blood,” Lilith mumbles, more curious than disgusted. “Nice place, though.”

“I’m going to check out the basement,” Randall tells them, more specifically Hamish, waiting for his nod of acknowledgement before stalking back to the stairs. 

He passes Gabrielle, Alyssa and Jack on the landing, muttering, “Check upstairs and the garage,” as he slips around them. 

The scent gets thicker, blood and fear and something else - what  _ is _ that, why is Greybeard chasing it? - and he knows it’s going to be bad, whatever he finds, it’ll be a crime scene at best, but the altar is a surprise. 

So are the markings on the walls, the pelts draped over trunks and boxes, the cages. The blood isn’t, but the amount of it staining the floors, the altar, it’s splattered on the walls, that’s alarming even though he knew there would be a lot. Even though it’s old blood and the scent’s gone stale, but for him to still smell it at all, like it’s going to start dripping from the ceiling or seeping up from the floorboards, he knew it and it still makes his stomach turn, makes him painfully aware of his own blood turning to ice. 

And the pelts… wolf pelts, mostly, coarse and dense and familiar enough that his skin crawls when he runs his hands over them, the fur stiff and tacky. They’ve been here a while. Their owners have been dead for a while. Right here under their noses and they didn’t have a clue. 

The cages are empty and should that be a relief or a sign of failure on his part? 

He circles the altar, trying to make sense of what’s drawn on the wall. There’s a saevbacch sigil, that one he recognizes with another sharp twist in his stomach. A lot of this looks like what they took from Travenner’s place. So Bashmet must be starting from scratch, just like Hamish said, and Pineau must have been helping. He couldn’t steal a hide so he got in touch with someone who had lots of hide, and they tried to make one. They tried to make five, at least, five cages, five pelts, five dead wolves and who knows what else. 

There’s a larger fur hanging on the wall, different skins sewn together and maybe that’s what they tried to do with the werebear. Maybe that’s why it fell apart, but this one is in better shape. The fur it still vivid, still soft to the touch - fresher, this is so fucking twisted -, and it’s big. Bigger than the werebear, and if you take a wolf pelt and bind it to a person to get anything close to making something like Greybeard, if a bear skin turns into that thing that attacked them earlier, what the hell would you get from this? How would you control something like that, how would you fight it and if you couldn’t… 

He reaches up to take the hide down and smells it again, that smell from earlier… something… sweet. Warm and sweet and clean like… milk, almost… 

The smell gets stronger as he backs away from the altar and moves deeper into the basement, ducking around a corner to find a sleeping bag and another trunk. Padlocked, but he yanks it off with a hard tug that sends the lock skittering across the floor with a muffled clang, all the way to the far corner of the room. 

The lock comes clanging back. 

It’s a weak throw, the lock only makes it a few feet, so whoever tried to toss it back can’t be in good shape. If Randall finds out Bashmet’s experimenting on people, he’s going to rip him to pieces on the spot, if he tried to turn…

A little boy. 

He can’t be older than four. 

That’s who’s hiding in the corner. Was hiding in the corner, now he’s picking up the lock and holding it out to Randall, looking up at him with big amber eyes peeking out from beneath a mop of dark chestnut hair.

Bashmet and Pineau tried to turn a kid into a werewolf. 

They tried to…

Randall is going to kill Bashmet. 

He’s not even going to wolf out to do it, he’s going to strangle with his own hands.

The boy sniffs and wipes his face with the back of his hand, thrusting the lock toward Randall and glancing at the trunk, and bursts into tears. Big, fat tears spilling over his eyes before he can even blink and he barely makes a sound, just gulps in shaky breaths and whimpers. It would be less heartbreaking if he was screaming, if he wasn’t holding back like he was afraid to make any sound.

“Hey, it’s OK,” Randall says, dropping to kneel in front of him, “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

For some reason that makes him cry harder, little hands flying to cover his mouth, so Randall tries again, “I won’t hurt you. Please don’t cry.”

Maybe the kid doesn’t understand him, or maybe he’s just terrified because he’s been locked in a basement and experimented on. Right, what the hell is Randall doing?

He gets a little closer and takes the lock, which is a bad move, horrible move because the boy collapses to the ground and sobs harder than Randall has ever seen anyone cry in his life. 

“You can keep it!” he says quickly. “Here, you can have, I don’t need it!”

The crying quiets a little as he lifts his head to look at Randall, confused and scared with his wobbling chin. 

Randall smiles at him and holds the lock out. “Sorry, dude. All yours, OK?”

His hand is so small, he can barely wrap his fingers around the lock. The tears keep coming as he stares at Randall and huddles over the lock like it’s some precious thing he has to protect. What the hell is in that trunk? What’s going to make the kid more upset, Randall getting up to look or moving closer? 

He doesn’t get a chance to find out, the little boy scurries past him, flings the trunk open - the sweet, clean smell explodes, Greybeard goes still as a statue -, and nearly falls in to pull out a hide, white around the muzzle and chest and underbelly, but its back is marbled with black and gray, streaked reddish brown, even gold. Its coat is thicker and the fur is longer than any hide Randall’s seen before, tufts fanning out from the jaw and cheeks. 

The boy wraps it around himself like a cape, pulling the head of the hide up like a hood - the ears look huge on him, Randall tries not to think of how cute it is - and curls up in a ball on the sleeping bag, sniffling and trembling.

“Are you cold?” Randall asks, risking a step toward him. “I can take you upstairs. It’s warmer up there.”

The hide ripples, almost like it’s settling tighter over the little bo - puppy. 

The wolf puppy.

Wolf pup.

Because the boy is a wolf pup now. 

Too big paws and a long, skinny tail. 

Growling at Randall with his hackles raised, ears pinned and tensing like he’s going to lunge. 

Randall holds up his hands and says slowly, “Easy, buddy. I’m not -”

The wolf pup snaps at him. 

Greybeard thrashes, and this is not happening, they are  _ not _ attacking a kid, Randall doesn’t care how much he growls at them, they’re not going to hurt this kid. Pup. Pupkid. Wolf boy. Not even if he pounces and, Greybeard, NO!

Greybeard doesn’t give a shit, he bends and growls, low and deep and… not … at all ferociously… 

The pup’s snarls immediately turn to excited whimpers, tension dissolving into a full body wiggle with his tail wagging so fast he could fly away if he got the rotation right. He acts like he can’t decide if he wants to come closer or roll over or whatever else wolf pups do, Randall is pretty lost right now. 

Greybeard isn’t. 

He reaches toward the pup and lets him nuzzle and lick and chew on his hand. 

He noses at his stomach and the pup does roll onto his back, batting at Greybeard’s muzzle and Greybeard snarls. Laughs. Softly. 

Maybe Randall’s not the only one with baby fever...

And when he pokes the pup’s belly with his nose, he laughs harder. Not because it’s funny, even though the pup squirms like it tickles and sneezes so hard his body slides a few inches up the floor. He stares down the pup with something like wonder. Nuzzles him so, so gently. Because the pup is small, he’s too small to be on his own, but he won’t be now. He’ll never be alone again. 

Before Randall can fully process that thought and ask Greybeard what he’s talking about, he’s gone. So is the wolf pup, now he’s nose to nose with a smiling little boy, covered in a wolf hide, his wolf hide. Because he’s a wolf. Werewolf. Sort of. He’s a little boy who turns into a wolf and his cheeks are still wet but he has dimples and freckles and maybe Greybeard isn’t the only one who wants to take this kid home and protect him from every single thing in the world. 

His cheeks hurt so he must be smiling, too. “Are we friends now?”

The boy giggles, and it hits Randall right in the center of his chest and he can barely breathe but he laughs, too, and the boy sits up, one hand clutching the skin and holding it closed around his shoulders and the other reaches up towards Randall. 

Oh yeah. They’re best friends now. 

Randall bundles the kid up in the skin and scoops him up, and his eyes get impossibly bigger. Wider. Like he’s never been up this high - when’s the last time someone held this kid? - or seen beyond his little section of the basement. Not that Randall is going to let him see the bloodbath in the other room, he’ll cover his eyes for that. Kids don’t need to see that. Not even wolf kids. But he looks around with big, almost golden eyes that blink as they dart over Randall’s features. 

“How’s that?” Randall asks softly. “Better?”

Instead of an answer, he gets a chilled nose to the neck. 

A hard sniff. 

A tentative nuzzle. 

A head resting on his shoulder, forehead pressed against his neck, and a little hand touching his chest, right over his scar, and Greybeard purrs as Randall combs his thick, fluffy hair back from his eyes. So he can push it off his forehead and check if he’s cold or hot, obviously. He just wants to make sure the kid isn’t sick, and he feels fine. He’s just cold, so if Randall holds him a little tighter, that’s why. Because he’s cold, clearly he’s cold, they’re in a basement and he’s wearing nothing but his wolf hide. And he’s scared, why else would he be nuzzling a complete stranger, of course Randall is going to hold him. 

Anyway, he doesn’t smell like blood or like he’s sick, which is … that’s why he sniffed him. To check. Make sure he’s not hurt. Which he isn’t. He’s just cold and scared. So Randall will hold him. As any decent person would do. It has nothing to do with the way Greybeard’s howl explodes in his chest like this is a victory. Like they won something. Found something. Like he’s been looking everywhere and finally found it.

And if Randall nuzzles him back, if he rubs his forehead over the boy’s hair and breathes him in - sweet like warm milk, cold cement and dust but that’ll fade, that’ll wash off once they get him cleaned up -, it’s because Greybeard wants to comfort him, too. That’s it. It’s not weird. Not even when the little boy looks up and their noses meet. 

He has wolf eyes but he… he can’t be a werewolf because his hide wouldn’t be… why is his hide separate? Why does he turn into a full wolf? He’s too young to be a champion, he’s so small, what the hell did Bashmet and Pineau do to him?

Randall grabs the hand on his chest and holds it in his - kids have such tiny hands, how do they live? -, rubbing his thumb back and forth over little knuckles. “I’m Randall. What’s your name?”

“Alexander.”

Such a big name for such a little guy. “Can I call you ‘Alex’?”

“Uh-huh. Wha’s your other name?”

“You mean the big bad wolf?” He jostles him and Alex laughs as he nods. “Greybeard. What’s your other name?”

“I can’t say it like dis,” he mumbles, touching Randall’s lips. “It don’ sound good.”

Does Greybeard know his name?

Silence. Nothing but heart-eyes and an incessant nagging to take the pup upstairs and show him to Tundra and the rest of the pack. Especially Tundra. Tundra’s going to die when he sees him, so is Hamish. Now, now, now now - 

Cool, thanks, buddy, so helpful! Not that Randall is opposed to that idea. Even though they can’t… because he might… “Where’s, uh, where’s your family?”

He shakes his head and answers so quietly that Randall barely catches it, “Gone.”

“Maybe we can find them,” he offers. “I’m good at finding people.”

“Dey gone,” he repeats, louder and firmer but he curls in on himself. 

All those hides, all that blood splattered on the wall, blood that had been there for a while… 

  
He wants to hit something but he doesn’t want to scare him so he hugs him tighter and closes his eyes like he’ll forget what he saw and smelled and he won’t say that he and Hamish are keeping him, that they’re the only ones who can keep him safe, that he feels like he’s theirs. 

But he does. 

And if someone wants to take him, they’re going to have to prie him out of Randall’s arms. And Greybeard’s. 

Unless Hamish… but how can’t he? How can Hamish possibly look at this kid and not want to keep him? 

Still, Randall should… he should slow down here. Alex might not even want to stay with them. He’s wriggling like he wants down, see? He’s over it, clearly, that’s why he’s going back to his corner, little feet smacking against the floor towards a stack of folded up clothes. 

He brings them back to Randall and drops them on his feet. “Help, please.”

OK, so maybe he wants to put clothes on before he goes lone baby wolf. That’s cool. Randall will accept that (eventually), even as he kneels down so the boy can hold onto his arm for balance while he pulls on his shorts and says, “Hold, please,” as he takes off his hide and puts on his shirt. 

There’s a whole other outfit, which he offers to Randall, but, “I don’t think those are going to fit me, dude.”

He scurries back to the corner and returns with a short, fuzzy pink robe. It won’t cover much, but it’ll cover what needs covering if Randall ties it around his waist. He has spare clothes in his car, he can change later. He’ll have to if he looks ridiculous enough to make Alex laugh behind his hand. Or maybe he won’t because he loves the sound of that laugh. He’s rocking some serious thigh, too, so Hamish probably won’t care if he never wears anything else. 

Please let Hamish’s heart melt when he sees this kid…

Randall scoops him up again. “Eyes closed till we get upstairs, OK?”

He nods and shoves his face back into Randall’s neck, eyelashes tickling his skin as he blinks, snuffling into Randall’s chest. He’s not sure if he’s smelling him again or wiping his nose on him. If it’s the former, that’s adorable and if it’s the latter, whatever, the kid will probably puke on him at some point in his life, too, - if they keep him, god, Randall wants to keep him - so what’s a little snot for now?

Randall cradles his head as he carries him out of the basement to make sure he doesn’t look when they pass the altar and the other animal skins, but he whines and presses his face harder to Randall’s neck like he knows - maybe he does, maybe he was here for it, maybe he heard it all happening, maybe he smells it and remembers. 

“It’s OK,” Randall murmurs, rubbing his hair as they climb the steps. “Almost there, big guy.”

The carpet at the top of the stairs should muffle the sound of his footsteps, soften the vibrations across the floor, but the moment he steps out of the doorway, Hamish’s eyes are on him. On the boy he’s holding. And he gets this look on his face, this look of dawning comprehension and relief, like, “Where did you find that, I’ve been looking everywhere,” and he touches the wall like he’s losing his balance even though he’s standing perfectly still. He hasn’t moved, no one’s moved - Lilith looks up from where she’s sifting through books, just glancing at first but her expression moves quickly from disgusted to furious, lip curling as she slams the book closed, which startles Nicole into looking up and gasping, and that’s what prompts Jack to look up from the papers he’s reading, and his seething, “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” is what catches Alyssa’s attention, confused and concerned as she breathes out, “Oh my god,” and now Gabrielle is annoyed enough to tear her eyes off of her phone but her frustration only lasts through for the two blinks it takes for her to process the sight before her - but Randall took one step into the room with this little boy and the whole world shifted and all of them felt it. 

He doesn’t take his eyes off Hamish as slides his hand from Alex’s hair to rub his back and whispers, “You can look now,” and he knows Alex is going to look straight at Hamish. Their eyes will meet and Randall doesn’t even want to think about what will happen next, he won’t say anything about it until Hamish does, please just let him stay. 

The boy whispers in his ear, “Who are dey?”

“Those are my friends Jack and Alyssa, and this is Lilith and Nicole, and that’s Gabrielle. And over there is my husband, Hamish.”

“Whassa husband?”

Oh boy, they’re doing big questions already. “A husband is someone you love a lot and in a different way than you love anyone else.”

“Like mommys and daddys?” 

“Exactly!” Thank god, that was way easier than he thought it was going to be. “But they’re all super nice and none of them are going to hurt you.”

Lilith squints at the hide. “Is that what I think it is?”

“They’re trying to make werewolves. Were...things.” He glances down to make sure he’s not upsetting his new best friend but Alex just rests his cheek on Randall’s shoulder, still staring in Hamish’s direction. “He was in the back and his hide was padlocked. He turns into an actual wolf, though, not a werewolf.”

“As if Bashmet and Pineau weren't creepy enough,” Gabrielle mumbles, folding her arms over her chest. “So what’s the plan?”

“We should figure out what they did to him,” Jack says, stepping closer. Alex is still staring at Hamish, but he tenses under fresh eyes so Jack stills. “If he has family…”

Why is he looking at Randall like that as he trails off? Greybeard growled when he mentioned parents, did he sense it? Did Randall growl, too? He must have because Alex’s fingers tighten around Randall’s hand, or maybe he’s remembering what happened to his family. What he heard and saw down there… 

Whatever has been holding Hamish back this whole time breaks and he crosses the room in a series of long, quick strides. He’s barely within arms reach when Alex stretches his arms out for him, and Randall doesn’t even get a chance to ask if he wants to hold him or make a more formal introduction, Hamish just takes him. 

He’s never seen Hamish hold a kid. Until they got engaged, he assumed Hamish was allergic to anyone under the age of seventeen. But he settles Alex on his hip and carefully pulls the hide higher around his shoulders and the boy catches his hand. Traces the space between Hamish’s fingers when he splays them, curious and intent and not at all scared when he glances from Hamish’s hand to his face. He leans in to sniff his neck, too, and he must like whatever he finds because he stays there, and now Randall gets it. Why Hamish had to brace against the wall. Because if carrying that kid up the stairs, if that was the world shifting, this is everything falling back into place. This is everything they’ve wanted. 

Their friends must feel it, too, because Lilith says in an uncharacteristically hushed voice, “He’ll be safer with you than anywhere else.”

She’s looking at Randall, too, he feels her eyes on her and he means to smile at her - for all of Timber’s lone wolf tendencies, he gets it, he knows what this means for them - or mouth ‘thank you’ but he can’t take his eyes off Hamish and thei- the little boy. 

“Has he said anything?” Alyssa asks, and she’s not speaking loudly at all but her voice fills the room. “About what happened?”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Randall admits under his breath, shaking his head. “It’s like a Rob Zombie movie down there.”

Alex touches his nose to Hamish’s and Randall doesn’t have ovaries but he thinks he just grew some and now they’re exploding. It’s so precious, it’s so… he has to grab Hamish’s shoulder because he’s feeling this, right? Randall isn’t imagining this? That’s… this is… 

Hamish laughs, quiet and surprised, he’s never laughed like that. Not in all the years Randall’s known him.

“Hi,” the boy whispers.

“Hi,” Hamish whispers back. 

“You smell like Randoll.”

“That’s unfortunate.” 

Wow, rude. Also, Hamish loves the way he smells, hence he steals Randall’s clothes all the damn time. So not only is it rude, it’s just plain not true. It’s nothing but lies and slander, so he bites Hamish’s shoulder and makes the boy giggle and it might be Randall’s new favorite sound in the entire universe.

“Oh good, now there’s two of you,” Hamish sighs - yeah, he’s really disappointed, he’s not grinning like this is the best day of his life or anything - and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Alex.” He pats Hamish’s cheek. “Wha’s your other name?”

“Tundra.” 

“Tundera?”

“Close enough,” Hamish chuckles. “We’ll figure it out.”

He said ‘we’, does that mean… 

Alex paws at him. “I stay wid Haymitch-and-Randoll?”

Yes. 

Yes he can stay with Hamish and Randall.

Say it, Hamish, tell him, “Yes, you’re staying with us.”

It’s the single best sentence that’s ever come out of Hamish’s mouth, somewhere between “I love you” and “I do,” but it feels so much bigger, his heart feels bigger, like it’s going to explode. He didn’t think he could love anyone anywhere close to how much he loves Hamish, but this is… this is right there, but somehow on a completely different plane altogether, and how is that possible? How can one person love this much, this soon, what do people do with all this love? How do people live like this, how do you feel this much joy and love and like you swallowed the sun and not explode from it?

He tucks Alex’s exposed foot under the hide. Because his feet are cold. Because he’s theirs and it’s Randall’s job to keep him warm now. His and Hamish’s job. They’ll keep him warm and safe and they’ll figure out what happened to him, they’ll figure out what he needs, what he eats and if he heals and if he runs hot or cold, they’ll figure it all out. Because he’s theirs. Their little boy, their  _ son _ , their baby wolf. 

Alexander Carpio-Duke. 

It’s such a big name for such a little guy - warriors, writers, inventors - but it has a ring to it. He can grow into it. And they’ll call him ‘Alex,’ anyway, life is too fast for long names. Like, “Hey, Alex, what do you want for dinner?”, or “Time to get up, Alex,” or “This is my husband, Hamish, and our son, Alex.” 

His husband, Hamish. Their son, Alex.

A hand grabs Randall’s shoulder and squeezes, and Alyssa whispers in a tight voice, “You guys are very hot dads.”

“You are,” Lilith agrees, notes of surprise and approval coloring her voice. “So will Jack and Alyssa's kid turn into a wolf pup, too?”

Uh… 

Randall glances at Hamish, who’s looking at him like he thinks Randall is the supreme master of all werewolf knowledge and, dude, he isn't. He read the same journals as Hamish and they said a whole lot of nothing about baby werewolves and where they come from. Well, presumably they come from a mommy werewolf and a daddy werewolf, or two werewolves who like each other a lot, or two werewolves who got drunk and didn’t use werewolf birth control, or two werewolves who had a consensual good time and, hey, no judgment, accidents happen, but the journals didn’t say anything about that. 

But you know who does know everything about werewolves? 

The werewolves.

And you know who has an open line of communication with their werewolf alter ego? Well, other than Randall considering his is too busy emoting to be helpful.

Gabrielle Dupres, who has been resting her head on Randall’s shoulder and gazing at Alex for the entire duration of this conversation and apparently hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care that everyone stopped talking. Or that they’re staring at her. Or trying not to laugh at her in Randall’s case. 

She finally sighs and says, “We’re magically-induced werewolves, the Jalyssa spawn will be human.”

Alyssa lets out a relieved, "Oh thank god," as she grabs Jack's arm.

“Are you implying there are non-magically-induced werewolves?” Hamish asks, the barest hint of caution in his voice. 

Her head snap up as she turns the full force of her judgment on him. “Where do you think werewolves come from?”

“You said werewolves aren’t,” Randall covers Alex’s exposed ear, “sexual.”

“Oh please don’t tell me you don’t know the difference between biological urges to reproduce and screwing around because it feels good.”

Before Randall can argue, Hamish breaks in, “I didn’t think there were any werewolves left.”

“Neither did I.” Her annoyance melts away as she adds, “And neither did Midnight.”

Randall keeps Alex’s ear covered and murmurs, “There might not be now. They got his whole family.”

“Then we need to get him and the hides out of here,” Nicole murmurs. “Bashmet will probably be looking for him.”

Good. Randall has plans for Bashmet. Well, Hamish does, but Randall’s deeply invested in them. 

Lilith nudges Hamish’s shoulder. “Take him home. We’ll clear everything out and take it to the Reliquary.” 

“Are you sure?” Randall checks. “I’m telling you, it’s -”

She raises her eyebrows and the lights flicker as Timber flashes a glare at him. 

“- nothing you guys can’t handle,” Randall amends, “but it’s…”

He almost says it’s not their job, but it sort of is. It’s all of their job. Including Randall’s, but he looks at Hamish and Alex and it’s his job to take care of them, too, and Alex is small and probably still a little scared, and if he stays, if he tells Hamish to take Alex and go, Hamish will think he’s chosen the Knights over him. Over them, they’re a ‘them’ now. 

“My keys were in my pants.” 

Hamish shakes his head, smile pulling at his lips. “We’ll meet you by the car.”

If the pang in his stomach at watching them walk away, if the way his chest gets tight as Alex waves at him over Hamish’s shoulder is anything to go by, Randall won’t have any trouble staying home for the foreseeable future. 

* * *

After a quick tour of the house - including a pit stop at the bathroom that turns out to take much longer because while Alex is familiar with toilets, he is not familiar with foamy hand soap and has way too much fun playing with it while he washes his hands - and an investigation into which pizza toppings are the best and how many breadsticks a baby werewolf can eat before he turns into a breadstick - the results are inconclusive, he just smells like garlic and pepperoni now -, Randall and Hamish take Alex out to the front yard to explore and play in the fresh air and because it’s neutral territory to ask him a few questions that neither of them want to ask but they can’t avoid much longer. 

Hamish holds up a photo of Bashmet on his phone and asks, “Do you know this guy?”

  
Alex nods excitedly. “I bited his finger off.”

On one hand, Randall is thrilled to hear Bashmet is down a finger and super proud of Alex. That might be Greybeard… nope, it’s Randall. And Greybeard, but mostly Randall. 

On the other hand, Bashmet is still alive and might have given his baby wolf a stomach ache, so now Randall just wants to kill him harder. 

Hamish gives him a high-five. “Good job!”

“Thanks,” Alex chirps, smiling proudly. 

Randall pulls up Elena Pineau’s selfie. “Do you know her?”

“That’s the nice lady! She let me watch  _ Paw Patrol _ and gave me cheesy noodles.”

Note to self,  _ Paw Patrol _ and macaroni and cheese are good. 

“That’s very nice,” Hamish agrees, but the sentiment doesn’t reach his eyes. “Is she the one who brought you to the house?”

Alex goes from bouncy and chatty to stone cold silent in a flash, eyes downcast as he shakes his head. 

Randall tilts his head up and his eyes are welling up already, bottom lip quivering. “We don’t have to talk about it, Alex. I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” Hamish adds, rubbing his thumb over Alex’s hand. “I didn’t mean to -”

“It was the bad lady.”

Randall doesn’t want to show him Natalie Bashmet’s photo. He wants to throw his and Hamish’s phones across the yard and wrap Alex up in his arms and never talk about this again. Only half of that idea is an option - Randall’s phones take so much abuse from Hamish on a daily basis, if he throws it, it will probably survive without a scratch -, as much as he hates it, but holding Alex tighter seems to help him calm down a little. 

Hamish taps his phone a few times, probably looking for Natalie’s photo. “If you don’t want to look, you don’t have to, but if we know what the bad lady looks like, we can find her and -”

“Bite her finger off,” Randall cuts in. “We will bite her fingers off. All of them.”

“It’d grow back,” Alex whispers. 

That’s not good. 

“Does she turn into a wolf like you?” Hamish asks, and when Alex shakes his head, “What about like Randall and me?”

“No, she bad!”

  
  
“OK,” Hamish soothes as he brushes a tear off Alex’s cheek. “It’s OK. We won’t let her get you again, I promise.”

Alex pulls the head of his hide over his face and curls up into a ball against Randall’s stomach, and Randall barely lifts his hand to comfort him before he shivers and turns into a pup. 

Hamish’s shoulders slump. “We should have waited.”

“There’s never going to be a good time to talk about this stuff,” Randall points out. 

“It’s been two hours and I’ve already scared him into wolfing out.”

He takes Hamish’s hand and settles it on Alex’s back. His fur is so long Hamish’s fingers disappear as he strokes down his back completely unprompted. “You’re doing fine, Hamish.”

Hamish looks like he wants to argue but the spite and self-loathing fade from his features as he stares down at Alex, who blinks up at him with honey-gold eyes and gives a tentative wag of his tail that gets more much more enthusiastic when Hamish smiles. 

“See?” Randall nudges Hamish with his foot. “He’s been through a lot. It’ll take time, but he’ll talk to us about it when he’s ready.”

“Are you being mature or are you telling me what you tell your patients?”

“Doesn't matter, I'm still right."

Alex flops onto his back and bites at Hamish’s hand, not hard, not even clamping down all the way when he catches his fingers. Just playing. He gets snarly when Hamish taps his nose and yanks his hand back before he can bite him and almost rolls off Randall’s lap in his haste to stand up so he can pounce on him. Which does, right onto Hamish’s chest, and there’s no way he’s big enough to actually knock Hamish down but Hamish goes with it, falling dramatically onto his back and grabbing Alex around the ribs to hold him up in the air. 

Alex yips and snaps at him, tail wagging and paws churning the air trying to get close enough to hopefully not rip Hamish’s face off. He looks over his shoulder at Randall, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, and chirps at him, too. It’s an obvious invitation and what kind of dad would Randall be if he didn’t help his son defeat Hamish?

He snatches Alex out of Hamish’s hands and sets him on the ground, and as much as he was looking forward to watching Hamish get affectionately mauled, watching Tundra get affectionately mauled is pretty wild, too, and if he doesn’t wolf out immediately, Greybeard will absolutely, positively possess him and never give his body back. Not that Randall blames him. It’s his family, too. 

Greybeard swats at Alex hard enough to knock him back a few inches but not enough to send him flying - he’d probably love that, though, human kids love being thrown around when they’re playing -, and Alex charges back, lunging for his ear but there’s no way he’s, well, just kidding, he can jump high enough to get Greybeard’s ear if Tundra tackles him to the ground. 

Well played, Tundra. Well played. 

The games could go on for minutes or hours, but what does time matter when you’ve got a squirmy baby wolf pawing at your face and gnashing his needle-teeth and chasing crickets and sneaking a quick nuzzle in with your werewolf-husband before getting ambushed again. 

Alex finally trots back to them and stretches, back arching like a cat and claws sinking into the dirt, before turning back into a yawning, wobbling little boy dragging his hide behind him like it weighs a ton. 

Hamish catches him and shakes out the hide before wrapping it around him, smiling like Randall’s never seen. Big and bright, and Randall could sit here forever and watch the two of them like this. Alex, sleepy and snuggly as he rubs his cheek over Hamish’s shoulder. Hamish, beaming and whispering something Randall can’t be bothered to pay attention to because it wasn’t meant for him. Whatever he said to make Alex snicker and shake his head, that’s between them. Hopefully they’ll have lots of things to share just between the two of them. Little inside jokes and secret handshakes, mischief and chaos that will no doubt be conspired against Randall, routines and rituals for just the two of them. 

And he’ll have his own things with Alex. They’ll develop their own secret code and routine and find their own groove together. 

And there will be things for the three of them. Dinners together as often as they can manage. Movie nights. Trick or treating and staring out the window for Santa’s sled. Lazy Sunday mornings. 

Whatever they have, Randall-and-Hamish, Hamish-and-Alex, Alex-and-Randall, Randall-and-Hamish-and-Alex, it will be perfect. It will be theirs, so how can it be anything other than the best life possible?

Hamish walks up to him, smile plastered to his face as he asks, “Did we break you?”

Randall shakes his head as he stands and kisses his shoulder. “I’m just really happy.”

“Me, too,” Hamish murmurs. “Let’s get our little monster to bed.”

“Don’ wanna,” Alex groans. “I stay wid Randall-and-Haymitch…”

“You are,” Randall assures him. “You’re going to crash in our room tonight and tomorrow we’ll go pick out a big, comfy bed, just for you.”

“Not on the floor.”

“Not on the floor,” Randall confirms, squeezing Hamish’s shoulder when his eyes turn to steel. “Unless you want to sleep on the floor.”

He shakes his head and closes his eyes in a long blink until they get inside. He looks around the Den, but he’s not what Randall would consider ‘awake.’ More like he realizes on some level that he is in a new place and he’s probably so used to being on high-alert that he wants to pay attention but he’s so tired and hopefully feels safe enough that he knows he doesn’t need to. He touches things, though, as they pass - the walls, the railing, the top of their dresser, finally the duvet when Hamish sets him on the bed. 

It shouldn’t be possible for Alex to look any smaller than he is, but now that the hide is spread out over him, it could swallow him whole and if he was under the covers, he’d disappear. You’d never know there’s a little boy in there, you’d just think there was a wrinkle in the blankets, but the hide will keep him warm. Alex doesn’t seem to want to let it go yet anyway, so Randall pulls it up to his shoulders and folds the duvet up from the bottom of the bed over him. Now if he burrows, he’ll only be under one blanket instead of all the blankets. He’ll be much easier to excavate in the morning that way. 

Randall sit down next to him and rests his hand over Alex’s stomach, rising and falling slowly with every deep, easy breath. He should grab a shower. He should go throw Alex’s clothes in the washing machine, get the smell of that place out of them. He should call his parents, they’re probably still awake, but if he gets up, he’ll miss the way Alex’s nose wiggles every time the breeze floats into their room and the way he smacks his lips in his sleep. He’d miss the way Hamish watches him, his laugh no louder than a breath when Alex growls at something - he must be dreaming, maybe Randall is dreaming, too -, how he whispers, "Shh, it's OK,” and smooths the snarl away from his face. How Alex nuzzles into Hamish’s hand and settles without waking for a single instant. 

He’s making the face. He’s giving them The Look, the one he gives Hamish when he kisses his hand, or says romantic things - Hades and Persephone, Hamish thinks he stole him, but Randall followed him, he would follow him to the end of the world and they’d watch it burn together -, or any of the thousands of times when he made Randall feel so happy and grateful and loved that he was bursting with it, honestly it’s probably just Randall’s face at this point. But he knows he’s giving them The Look, he can tell by the way Hamish smiles at him.

“I love him already,” he whispers. 

“So do I,” Hamish says in a rush of air, like a confession. “God, Randall, when I saw you holding him…”

The world stopped. 

Everything stopped. 

Everything changed. 

Randall leans closer till their foreheads touch and they stay like that for a long time, forehead-to-forehead, lips meeting and parting in soft, lingering kisses, smiling and sighing between stolen glances at Alex and gentle touches to the other’s hand, cheek, scar, all the way down the bridge of each other’s nose - Hamish laughs, but he does it back -, learning each other all over again. Because everything is different now. 

Everything is wonderfully, beautifully different.


	5. In which there are big talks, small talks, and tea is just leaf water..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe out there in the world!
> 
> I just realized this fic is going to a long, slow-moving story for a while. Oops. o.O Hopefully everyone enjoys that and sticks with me for the long haul. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read so far!

A text from Lilith a little after three in the morning - _dumping stuff at the reliquary now and crashing at the den. we promise not to wake up the baby!!!_ \- sends Randall and Hamish creeping out of their room so as not to disturb a now wolfed out Alex who has burrowed under the blankets with only the tip of his muzzle peeking out. 

Hamish had dozed off for a while, but between being excited and head over heels, Randall couldn’t sleep a wink. He stayed up all night watching Alex sleep tucked under Hamish’s arm and neither of them budged until Alex wolfed out and disappeared under the duvet. He has at least thirty photos of the two of them sleeping and another dozen or so of just wolf pup Alex. His ears droop when he sleeps and he looks a little like a baby cow until his lip curls. Baby cows do not have sharp teeth or make _“grrruff!”_ noises as they chase rabbits through their dreams. That’s what Randall hopes he dreams of. Hunting and playing and pouncing on crickets, only good things. 

Maybe one of them should stay in case he wakes up. It’ll be scary to wake up in a new house by himself. Plus they were there when he fell asleep, if he wakes up and they're not there, he might think they left him. Has he already noticed they're gone? Randall should go check. 

Hamish’s hand curls around his elbow to pull him along. “This won’t take long. He’ll be OK.”

“I just don’t want him to wake up alone.”

“He won't. We'll make sure everyone is alright and talk about the rest tomorrow. There's nothing else we can do now anyway."

Randall drops his hand from his face and leans into Hamish. “What are we going to do with him on Monday?”

“I’ll bring him to campus with me.”

“Is the Temple the best place for a toddler?”

“Relax, Randall, he’ll be in my office or Vera’s office the whole time.”

One time when Randall was a kid, his mom had to bring him to the salon with her because one of his dad’s clients had an emergency. Server crash or something. Anyway, Randall remembers being asked to play quietly and hang out at the station next to hers, but then he saw the color station and decided finger-painting sounded way more fun. It took a week to get the dye off his fingers. It never came off the salon’s ceiling, they had to paint over it and his mom still points it out every time he swings by to bring her lunch or to get a haircut when he’s in town. It’s a good thing someone caught him before he accidentally bleached his own hair or something and his mom didn’t get fired. 

Vera would never fire Hamish - he knows too much -, but all Randall can think of is how many dangerous magical artifacts and potions ingredients she and Hamish keep in their offices and, on a scale of “Hey, baby, sorry to bother you at work, but Alex just accidentally cast a spell that ripped a hole into the universe and we’re all going to die in the next twelve minutes,” to “Well, at least now we’ll know if he has a healing factor, do you think he’s too young for the cure-all?”, how much trouble can Alex stir up in one day? 

A lot.

He can get into a lot of trouble. 

But they don't have an alternative. He can’t go to daycare until they know if Bashmet will be looking for him. 

Also, he can’t go to daycare because they just got him and he needs to get adjusted to his new life with them before they start widening the circle of people in his life. Not to mention his spontaneous transformations, they will definitely have to get a handle on those. 

Maybe his parents will want to watch him one day a week if they decide to move closer. They'll have to come over, though, in case Alex wolfs - oh _shit_ , “Hamish, what are we going to tell my parents?”

Hamish’s brow furrows. “That we adopted him. What else would we tell them?”

“I mean,” Randall unlocks the door on his way to the couch, “what are we going to tell them when he wolfs out?”

“We could…” Hamish’s frown deepens as he trails off, staring out the window. "Oh." 

“We’re not taking his hide away from him.”

“No, absolutely not."

"And if we pressure him to not wolf out, he's going to be scared to meet them, and I don't want him to be scared of my parents, then he'll just want to wolf out more and get stressed out and -"

“We have to tell them.”

“Yeah, I know, I wasn't -”

“Everything, Randall." Hamish lets out a long, heavy breath. "We need to tell them everything.”

Everything…?

Like… how Randall and Hamish are werewolves and Knights of St. Christopher and Practitioners and how that all happened? 

If he tells them all of that, he’ll have to tell them how he really met Hamish and his friends, and how he lost his memories and got them back, and how they lost Lilith and got her back, how Jack almost died twice and got turned into a tree, how they stopped the apocalypse, how Randall almost died, how they pulled Alex out of a werewolf trafficking ring, how Randall has killed people.

Lots of people. 

One he only killed because he needed her blood to get his friend back. 

Two he killed because he got experimented on, oh yeah, he’ll have to tell them that, too, and how he couldn’t stop himself. He did try, though, he really tried not to kill Ruby. She was bad, sure, but it didn’t mean she deserved to die. Not like that. 

And those are just the ones he distinctly remembers, that’s not counting all the people he killed before Jack figured out they didn’t have to kill people to stop the flow of bad magic. And that that's why they ate hearts anyway, so he'll have to tell them that not only did he become a werewolf and kill people, he did it without ever questioning if he really had to kill them. 

Is that the ‘everything’ Hamish is talking about?

How is he going to look his parents in the eyes and convince them he’s not a monster?

Hamish’s face appearing before his own breaks into his thoughts, hands a firm but reassuring weight on his thighs as he crouches down in front of him. “There is nothing you can tell them that will make them love you any less.”

“I’m a little more concerned about if they’re going to love Greybeard and Tundra.”

“They’ve saved our lives at least a hundred times.” He squeezes Randall’s legs and adds, “If it goes badly, we can wipe their memories.”

He can’t wipe Randall’s, though. Randall will have to pretend he doesn’t know what they really think of him. If it goes badly. If, because it might be OK. They might be scared and freaked out at first, but they might come around. They might not stare at him like they’re trying to see their son instead of a throat crushing, heart eating werewolf. 

But if it goes badly, if they need time or space or they never want to see him again, what does that mean for Alex? He’s just a kid, he’s never hurt anyone who didn’t hurt him first. How could anyone look at Alex and think he’s anything less than the most precious thing in the world with his fluffy hair and giggles or his too-big paws and ears and twitchy nose? 

Hamish hooks his hands under Randall’s knees and pulls him closer. “It will probably freak them out, but the second they see Alex, they won’t care about anything else. They will still love you, they will fall in love with him, and they might be a little pissed at me for a while because I turned you into a werewolf, but I think they’ll get past that, too.”

“Greybeard turned me into a werewolf, not you,” Randall mumbles. 

Wait.

Hang on just a second. 

“Hamish, if none of the hides chose me, were you going to kill me?”

Hamish snorts. “Of course not.”

“Then what -”

Hamish’s hands slide to his hips and pull him impossibly closer, nearly off the couch, but who needs a couch when you can straddle your husband’s lap? Randall doesn’t. Not when the position is so similar to how they were earlier in the car that Randall’s stomach swoops and his face heats, but that could just be from the way Hamish blinks up at him with eyes so bright he’d swear they were glowing. 

“I thought you’d at least be a Midnight. Anyone can be a Midnight for a little while.”

“Rude.” Not as rude as Hamish’s teeth on the corner of his jaw, he pulls his hair for that one, but still, rude. “I’m too chaotic-good for Midnight.”

“You’re too kind for Midnight.” He presses a ghost of a kiss to Randall’s throat. “You’re too loyal for Timber.”

He doesn’t know if Hamish pulls him down or if he just happens to slide the rest of the way off the couch till his knees hit the floor, all he registers is Hamish tipping his head back to suck a bruise high on his throat that no one will see. It’s too dark and everything is covered in shadows. It’ll be gone in the morning, it’ll be their little secret as long as Randall doesn’t leave claw marks in Hamish's shirt. 

He grabs Randall’s chin and pulls him into a rough, fast kiss and says against his lips, “You’re way too bold for Silverback.”

That one sounds close to an insult but he soothes it by running his tongue over Randall’s, tracing the edge of his teeth and his lips before he pulls back to finish his assessment, “And even if I wasn’t already wearing him, you’re too warm for Tundra.”

“You’re not a cold person, Hamish.”

“I can be.” He kisses him again, softer, longer. How can Hamish think he’s a cold person when he kisses Randall so tenderly? “You had to be Greybeard’s champion. But to answer your question, no. I wouldn’t have killed you. I would have… threatened you, probably, and kept an eye on you to make sure you were behaving yourself and not crying wolf.” 

“Nice werewolf pun.”

“Thank you for noticing. Anyway, you wouldn’t have told anyone because you’re a good person, but you’d probably be sniffing around all the time because you’d want to help, or you’d be worried about me being lonely or getting hurt or something, and maybe we would have wound up together a lot sooner.”

“You tell such great stories.” He slides his arms over Hamish’s shoulders as he leans in to kiss him and adds, “As long as it’s you and me in the end, I don’t care how we got here. It would have been nice if you didn’t have to go through so much bad shit on your own, though. And Alex. I wish we found him under better circumstances.”

Hamish glances toward the stairs. “At least we can make the rest of his life as happy and carefree as possible.”

“We’re going to spoil him rotten.”

“We will spoil him an appropriate amount.”

“My mother will spoil him rotten and we will have no say in the matter. How many cookies do you think he’ll eat in one sitting?”

“All of them. Did you see what he did to the breadsticks?”

It’s true. “It was a carbtastrophe.”

Hamish draws a breath to undoubtedly once again make it clear that he has no appreciation for Randall’s wit, but they’re having a moment here and he can’t let Hamish ruin it, so he sucks a mark of his own under Hamish’s ear. Not as secret as the one he left on Randall, but Randall will never be able to resist an opportunity to remind people they belong to each other. (He is a weak, weak man.) It doesn’t hurt that it makes Hamish’s breath hitch, either, or that his hand slides to the back of Randall’s neck, which Randall takes as encouragement to keep going. He drags his teeth over his jaw, frames his face in his hands and kisses him slow and deep and hard, because he’s been watching Hamish with their son, their baby wolf, the most precious thing in their lives and trying not to kiss him like this all night, and now he has to try to pour every overpowering emotion thrumming through his veins into this kiss, and the next and the next and every single kiss after that, because there aren’t enough words to express how much he loves him. 

Hamish kisses him back just as hard, stroking up his sides as he rucks his shirt up, and Randall’s not sure if he shivers from the cool air circulating around the room or if it’s just the way Hamish’s fingers rake over his ribs and over his chest. 

His shirt gets dropped somewhere, on the couch or the floor or down a portal to another dimension, what’s it matter when his husband - is that ever going to get old? Is that word ever going to stop making his heart skip a beat? - is kissing him like he’s desperate. Like he’s gasping for the air in Randall’s lungs - he can have it, he can take whatever he wants -, and he touches him like he’ll slip through his fingers if he doesn’t hold him tight enough. It’s all still new, it’s all still fragile, but this part hasn’t changed. The meeting and parting of their lips as they kiss, the feel of Hamish’s fingers over his skin as they trail back down to slide under his sweatpants and pull him tighter against him.

But it’s different, too, because Randall has to be quiet, he has to bite down his groan when Hamish urges him to move and the friction is just right, so good, he gets hard in record time and whimpers when he moves him faster, harder, and now he’s on his back - this is the same, Hamish likes him on his back - and a leg slots between his. Hamish stopped kissing him at some point to stare down at him, eyes half-lidded but it does nothing to conceal the intensity of his gaze, and Randall has to bite his lip to keep from making a noise when he rocks against him. 

He reaches for him at the same time that Hamish leans down and it’s all just friction, pressure building and building in a sweet, throbbing ache as they grind against each other. His hands get pinned to the floor - the same - as Hamish lays teeth to his throat - the same, but different because Randall has to choke down a gasp, a cry, whatever the hell was going to come out of his mouth but Hamish is breathing loudly, too, why did they stop kissing? Why did they, fuck, his lip is bleeding, Hamish is licking the blood off of his lip, sucking it into his mouth, and Randall clenches his hands on nothing as he kisses down and down and down his body. 

Hamish hooks his fingers in the waistband of his pajama pants and glances up at him. “Can I…?” 

Randall nods frantically. “Please.”

“You have to stay quiet,” Hamish warns, completely at odds with the softness in his voice, of the kiss he presses to Randall’s stomach. 

Right. Quiet. He can be quiet, he can be so quiet, he’s got a loud enough internal monologue that Hamish will probably hear that anyway and - oh _fuck_ , Hamish’s mouth is so, so good, so hot and wet and wrapped tight around him as he sucks him down slowly. Agonizingly slowly, Randall’s hips stutter of their own accord, desperate for more, till Hamish’s arm comes up to pin them to the floor and Randall has to stifle a whimper with his fist because he wants more, needs more, wants to beg him for more but he has to be quiet. 

Apparently that rule doesn’t apply to Hamish, though - they never do, why start now? - because he is making the most obscene slurping, suckling noises and, holy fucking _shit_ , when he moans, low and growly, Randall’s free hand flies to Hamish’s hair. Just to pet, just to grab onto, not to push him down or make him move faster, just so he knows it feels good - it feels _so_ good, god, Hamish’s fucking mouth is so fucking good - since Randall can’t tell him it feels good, all he can do is bite down on his knuckles so he doesn’t cry out when his dick hits the back of Hamish’s throat. 

He makes the mistake of looking down at Hamish, bobbing his head with his lips stretched around him, and now he has to talk, has to hiss out, “I’m close.”

Hamish hums - not helpful, Hamish, so not helpful - and Randall’s head hits the floor with a dull thud. It’s hard to breathe with his fist in his mouth and Hamish’s tongue swirling around the head of his dick, is breathing this loud allowed? Is it cheating that his heart is pounding against his chest like it’s trying to escape, or that his blood roars, can Hamish hear any of that over the sound of his throat swallowing around him? Over his own groans, fuck, fuck, _fuck!_

He hits the floor with his fist, bites his lip to swallow down the noise he wants to make, tightens his fingers on Hamish’s hair as his hips snap against the arm pinning him down, his whole body spasming at movement of Hamish’s tongue and mouth. He’s still shuddering when Hamish trails light kisses over his hip and moves back up his body to ghost his lips over his scar. It sends a whole new round of shockwaves rocketing through his body that Hamish kisses away just as gently. 

Even in his post-orgasm brain fog, he knows Hamish didn’t finish, but he’s close. So close that when Randall's leg barely grazes him as he rolls them over and he hisses through his teeth.

“Let me make you come,” he breathes against Hamish’s lips, smiling at the full body shudder it gets him. Maybe he can even make him come on the spot if he adds, “Please.”

It doesn’t work, but it does get him another kiss, back to rough and bruising, and a hand tangling in his hair. Not holding him in place, not stopping him from sliding down Hamish’s body and pulling down his pants. Not pushing him down when he hovers over him, even though he can. Not until he closes his mouth around the head of his dick and sucks and licks, now Hamish’s hand applies gentle pressure, breath going ragged and loud enough to cover the sounds of Randall’s tongue and throat working him over. 

  
Hamish keeps him at a slow, careful rhythm, opting to hold him still and rock shallowly into his mouth, pre-cum leaking almost faster than Randall can lick it away - he moans at the way he tastes, he loves the way Hamish tastes - and it’s not even half a thrust later when he comes, pulsing in Randall’s mouth and gasping as his body goes stiff, stiff like the hand in his hair that holds him down while he swallows every last drop. 

When Hamish’s hand relaxes, shifts to petting his hair instead of gripping it like a vice, Randall crawls a little higher up his body to rest his head on his stomach. He listens for signs of consciousness coming from upstairs but there’s nothing but puffs of breath, not even a sleepy growl or sigh. If he were to go check on him, Alex would probably be in the exact spot and position where they left him. Hopefully it’s because he feels safe, because he smells Randall and Hamish and knows they’ll keep him safe, and not because he’s exhausted. 

Hamish’s finger traces his cheekbone. “Do you think he likes us?”

“I don’t think he’d be snuggling with you if he didn’t,” Randall points out, nuzzling Hamish’s palm. “He was going to rip my face off before Greybeard went all, ‘HAIRY BABY’ on him.”

“Tundra shut down the second we smelled what turned out to be Alex. I was trying to figure out what it was but Tundra was gone. Just like that,” he demonstrates with a snap of his fingers. “Then you brought Alex upstairs and I thought he was going to tear me to pieces trying to get to you two.”

“You think they’re feeding off of us or is this something else again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe both,” Hamish adds with a grunt as he grabs Randall’s shirt and hands it to him. “You said Greybeard wouldn’t tell you his name?”

“It was more like Greybeard didn’t give a shit about anything I said even though he lives in my body. He just wanted to play with the tiny werewolf.”

Hamish shrugs and glances out the window as Nicole’s car pulls up, closely followed by Jack’s truck, both with their headlights off, bless them. “I can’t say that I blame him.”

Randall grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. “Love you, pretty.”

“I love you, too, weirdo.”

And people say romance ends with marriage… 

The exhausted-looking Knights and Honorary Knights file in and hover between the couches and the stairwell, with the exception of Alyssa who goes straight to the table and flips through the boxes of food. 

“Who ate all the breadsticks?” she asks, frowning at the slim pickings. 

“Alex,” Randall replies with an apologetic grin. “He’s a carbivore.”

“So am I, apparently.” She grabs the lone surviving piece of cheese pizza and pouts all the way back to the couch to flop against Jack’s side. “How’s he doing?”

“If how hard he’s sleeping is any indication, then great,” Hamish answers. “We talked to him a little about what happened, but all we know so far is Elena Pineau was nice to him, Bashmet is missing a finger, and whoever orchestrated this thing is a woman with regenerative powers but isn’t a werewolf.”

“Could it be Bashmet’s wife?” Jack asks. 

“Maybe, but I seriously doubt she or her husband have enough power between them for regeneration."

Gabrielle cuts in, "Did you show Alex her photo?"

"He was terrified," Randall answers and gives Hamish's shoulder a squeeze. "We didn’t push him on it.”

“You’re going to have to,” Gabrielle points out. “Or I can do it, if you want. I took, like, seven child psychology and trauma classes in undergrad. I’ll just need paper, crayons, dolls, stuffed wolves - dogs will probably work, but wolves if you can find them -, lavender oil for my diffuser, candy, and that squishy modeling sand. We can make play-doh work, but I know how much you want your son to have nice things, so get the sand.”

She says all this like Randall wasn’t already going to buy all of that stuff for him besides the dolls - unless Alex asks for them, he’s not enforcing bullshit gender stereotypes on his kid - and lavender oil. But there’s no way he’s letting Gabrielle have this talk with Alex. She would be great and kind and as gentle as possible, but he and Hamish will handle it. 

Hamish might not have been planning on getting him all of that stuff, though, based on the way his head drops to rest against Randall’s shoulder like it’s suddenly much too heavy. Poor guy, all those parenting classes and he still never realized how much stuff kids require. Or he just noticed the blankets rustling upstairs that might signal the awakening of the impending recipient of said stuff. 

Randall gives him a conciliatory kiss in the general area of his temple - it’s hard to aim a kiss in a specific place when your shoulder is the only thing holding up a person’s head. “Go check on baby wolf.”

Hamish raises his eyebrows. “Are we calling him that now?”

“Yes,” Randall decides immediately and nudges him toward the stairs. “Go ahead. I’ll be right there.”

Hamish gives him a quick kiss with much better aim than Randall’s and says to the room at large, “We’ll talk tomorrow. Good work tonight, get some rest.”

Randall watches him take the steps two at a time and tracks his movements into their bedroom where his gait shifts to something calmer, quieter. There’s a whispered, “You OK?” and an even softer, “Mhmm,” and some shifting around that he knows is the two of them snuggling back up. He’s sure Hamish is rubbing Alex’s arm or brushing his hair off his face or holding his hand where he’s probably grabbing Hamish’s shirt. 

Lilith grins and elbows Randall. “You are in such hardcore dad mode already.”

“Yeah, that’s actually something I wanted to talk to you guys about before we all go crash,” he confesses, walking around the couch to sit down in Hamish’s chair so he can properly address everyone. “Hamish and I are going to have to take a step back from Knights stuff. Jack will, too, and I know it’s not fair to ask you guys to pick up our slack, but -”

“Really?” Nicole scoffs, shaking her head. “Do you really think we didn’t realize this was going to happen when you and Hamish started the adoption process?”

Jack waves a hand between him and Alyssa. “We didn’t know this would happen.”

Alyssa shakes her head and stuffs the rest of her pizza in her mouth. 

“That’s why you should have gone with the five year IUD instead of the three like I told you three years ago,” Gabrielle says pointedly before turning back to Randall. “You guys are benched anyway till we get rid of Bashmet and whoever might be looking for Alex.”

Randall shakes his head firmly. “I’m not sending you two out alone every time something happens by yourselves.”

“Wait, am I benched, too?” Jack asks sharply. 

“No one is benched, but -”

“I’m a demon,” Lilith reminds him. “Plus we’ll have Nicole, we’ll be fine.”

“Um, hi, remember me?” Alyssa butts in. “I'm pregnant, not dead, and I’m not quitting the Order just because I’m having a kid so it’s not like I expect Jack to stop doing what he’s doing, either.”

Jack pats her leg. “Not really the same thing, babe. I can’t stop being a werewolf.”

“True, but you _can_ stop being a dumbass and almost getting yourself killed.”

Lilith chuckles. “No, he can’t.”

“Guys,” Randall hisses, “I am trying to come up with a system here so everyone can be Knights and still have a life!”

“I’m sorry,” Gabrielle begins in a tone that is sorry about absolutely nothing, “what do you think we’ve been doing this whole time? The only people whose lives are changing around here are yours and Hamish’s, and Jack’s and Alyssa’s, so you can sort your own shit out and let us know what the plan is very, very late tomorrow morning because I am exhausted. Now go upstairs, bond with your kid, and stop being guilty about things that haven’t happened and wouldn’t be your fault anyway.”

She stands and starts towards the stairs, adding under her breath, “And congratulations on sneaking in a quickie while your kid sleeps, I’m mentally high-fiving you in the face.”

Randall has no clue how to respond to that. Well, the last part makes him blush, but the first part is… see, it sounded like she was mad at him but the actual words that came out of her mouth were mostly supportive, so is he supposed to apologize about something or feel better, what just happened here?

“She’s right,” Lilith says and kicks Randall’s shin. “You guys can make a schedule or something for how you want to handle all of this, but I’m good.”

Randall kicks her back but she jerks her leg up before it can connect. “I just want it to be fair to everyone involved.”

"Good luck with that," Jack says with a tired sigh. "Look, you and Hamish can't do days because you have jobs and a kid, so you take nights during the week. I'll go unless it's a class I can't miss or a doctors appointment with Alyssa. You guys can rotate on the weekends."

Alyssa raises her hand. "I can also watch Alex for you guys."

"Me, too," Nicole offers. "Or we both can."

Randall shakes his head. "I appreciate it, but if something bad happens and..."

He doesn't want to say it. He doesn't have to, either, they'll catch his drift, but he hates that these conversations keep coming back to that time bomb. Tick, tick, tick...

"Sorry," he mumbles. "That's... morbid and messed up, but -"

"It's a fair point," Jack breaks in with a sympathetic smile. "So we'll rotate, and we'll all come home in one piece to our respective families at the end of the day."

God, Randall hopes so.

Lilith pokes him. "Why is Bashmet down a finger?”

“Alex bit it off.”

She gasps and whirls to face Nicole. “OK, now I want one, too.”

“Great,” Nicole deadpans, throwing her hands up. “Thanks for that, Randall, and good night.”

“We’re going, too,” Jack says. “Good talk, buddy, we'll figure out the rest tomorrow. Sound good?"

Even if it doesn't, they’re all walking away, so apparently this conversation is over and Randall still doesn’t know if he should feel better or worse, but fuck it. He’ll figure it out later. 

He throws all the leftover slices of pizza into a single box and puts it in the fridge, stacks the empty boxes on the trash can to be dealt with later, dumps all the drinks and gets them in the dishwasher, and finally feels settled enough to go to bed without twitching so much he’ll wake up Alex and Hamish, who are not exactly how he expected to find them but close. 

What he expected was a scene similar to earlier, Hamish’s arm draped protectively over Alex, but what he finds is Hamish sprawled out on his back, one arm tucked under his head and the other cradling Alex who is nearly laying on top of him, like it’s his turn to be protective, or that he doesn’t want Hamish to leave again. They’re on his side of the bed, too, like Alex sensed he wasn’t there and chased his scent all the way to his pillow before settling there for the night. 

Alex has the right idea, Hamish’s chest is a great place to rest your head - well, Randall’s head, if anyone who hasn’t lived in this house were to snuggle up on Hamish like that, he’d rip their goddamn head off-, so Randall slips under the covers on Hamish’s side of the bed and snuggles over to him. He gently extracts Hamish’s arm and pulls it around his shoulder, smiling to himself when lips brush over his forehead and a little hand creeps closer and closer to his until their fingers meet. 

* * *

Shopping overwhelms Alex pretty quickly. 

The lights are too bright, the music is too loud and fast, and he had to leave his hide at home. Randall wouldn’t call his reaction to that last one a tantrum, per se, since it was most likely panic induced, but he only got more upset when Hamish suggested one of stay behind to keep an eye on it, so their only option was to all go together. Alex has spent the majority of their Target run in Hamish’s arms, peeking up from where he’s buried his face in his shoulder to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ enough clothes to last him a week, plus a bed and toothpaste - they got a very long, detailed lecture about how the blue sparkly kind is better than the strawberry stuff Gabrielle got last night - and a few more toys if he can hold out that long. 

To be honest, Randall isn’t so sure Hamish will hold out that long, either, because:

Stressed baby wolf + new dad who happens to be a werewolf with off the charts protective tendencies = Hamish on high-alert as he alternates between whispering reassurances in Alex’s ear and glaring icily at anyone who stares at them a fraction of a second too long. 

So here they are. 

A fiercely guarded man with his arms full of a scared toddler and Randall who never fell asleep last night because they! Are! So! Cute!!!! Ugh. He’s going to died from the cute, his heart can’t take it. But, yeah, Randall is… so fucking tired - he has to stop saying ‘fucking’ - and running solely on _husbandstressedbabystressedprotectprotectprotect_ fumes of his own. 

He’s about to suggest that Hamish takes Alex back to the car and sits with him while he gets the rest of the stuff, but a box of fish shaped crackers just made their way into the cart despite Randall’s hands resting firmly on the handle and Hamish’s hands alternating between rubbing Alex’s back and supporting his weight. 

Their eyes meet and Hamish’s mouth opens just as a little voice pipes up, “More cheese, please.”

Hamish laughs under his breath. “Cheese, toys, home?”

Alex’s hair flops as he nods.

“You’re doing great, Alex,” Randall tells him, and then Hamish, “I never thought about how ‘much’ Target is, but maybe that’s why we never get out of here without spending at least a hundred dollars.”

“Maybe,” Hamish grunts, grinning when a tiny hand stretches toward a package of fruit snacks and stepping closer so Alex can grab it. “I always assumed it had more to do with your lack of impulse control. Do we need laundry detergent?”

They always need laundry detergent, but it can wait. “You doing OK?”

“Tundra is driving me crazy.”

“Once we get everything, you guys can go sit in the car while I pay."

“He won’t like that either.” He bumps his shoulder against Randall’s. “I’m fine, I just - Alex, do you even like tea?”

“S’got a lion on it,” Alex mumbles. 

“Yeah, dude, lions are cool, but this is leaf water,” Randall argues, which gets him a throaty giggly. “ I can go out in the woods and throw some plants in a pot and make you the same thing. No, you know what, it would probably taste better than this... whatever this is. Hang on, it's... OK, so it's vanilla flavored leaf water. Cool. I can make you that, too."

He laughs so loud people are staring. He thinks people are staring, he feels eyes on them, but he doesn’t give a shit. 

“I’d love to see that,” Hamish says lightly, shifting Alex higher on his hip. “Hey, buddy, can Randall hold you for a minute?”

Randall reaches for him and Alex’s arms wind around his neck as his legs do their best to wrap around his torso but they’re not long enough.

Randall slides an arm under him to help him stay up. And that little hand that has now thrown tea, fruit snacks, crackers, M&Ms, and an assortment of juice boxes into the cart while they ‘weren’t looking’ grabs a hold of his shirt, and he rubs his nose on Randall’s neck, and Randall is never putting him down. Ever. Not even for Hamish to hold him. Alex is going to live right here, in Randall’s arms, forever. 

Hamish gives him a knowing smile and kisses his cheek before pushing the cart along. “Cheese, toys, home.”

And a bag of mini donuts, which gets opened the second they get Alex loaded up in the car, along with his new stuffed bear who has yet to be named - Randall’s vote is Barry, Hamish’s vote is to never let Randall name things -, a few books, his clothes, shoes, bed and bedding, and a few other toys.

Randall looks in the rearview mirror to see Alex muttering to his bear about how “Randoll can't name you, I sorry,” he flips through the pages of his book about oceans. He has chocolate all over his face from the donuts, and he’s laid out a few for his bear that they’ll probably forget to clean up so the car will forever smell of chocolate donuts and small child. 

A hand curls around his thigh and he covers it with his own, even though Hamish is a dirty rotten liar who’s turning their child against him on day one. 

Holy shit. Their child. Who is in the backseat, holding up his book for Hamish to read off random facts about marine animals that are way more interesting than any tidbit Jack’s ever offered up in casual conversation - way to go, ivy league education -, and licking chocolate off his fingers and slurping down his juice box - that’s a lot of sugar, oops, but he did have eggs and bacon earlier, so maybe that'll just cancel itself out -, and he’s theirs. 

He squeezes Hamish’s hand. “Tundra feeling better?”

“Immensely,” he sighs. “He’s going to be a dadzilla.”

“Does that make you a Hamzilla?”

“Hey, Alex, do you think Randall could walk home from here?”

“No, Haymitch, Randoll stay!”

Like Tundra would ever let Hamish kick him out of the car anyway. 

Still, a victory is a victory and it must be celebrated. In this case, that celebration is sticking his tongue out at Hamish, much to Alex’s delight and Hamish’s dismay. 

Alex is determined to help unload all their stuff once they get back to the Den, so Randall gives him light bags or random things out of the bags to carry inside while he and Hamish try their best to get everything except the bed into the house in a single trip and without waking anyone else up. They _might_ ruin it by high-fiving when they get the bed upstairs. (Oops.)

Randall gets the box open and all the pieces of the bedframe spread out on the floor while Hamish occupies Alex by standing him on the windowsill and looking at the clouds or some equally adorable shi-iz. It looks like it shouldn’t take much to slap this together at all. It’s just a matter of getting the legs tight enough and lining up everything else. 

He reaches for the ratchet-tool-thingy and sets the instructions on the floor where he’ll be able to consult them easily as he goes, but when he turns back to the bed, it’s assembled. The mattress, the sheets and blankets, all of it’s there. 

Alex squeals, “You made my bed, Randoll!” and belly flops onto his bed, stuffed bear and wolf-mallow in tow. 

Randall looks over his shoulder at Hamish, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed like he didn’t just wave his hands around and build their kid a bed, and is that safe? Does he know how tight the legs are screwed onto the frame? Is the headboard secure? Are the slats lined up neatly? Did he make sure the sheets are nice and tight so they don’t wrinkle and their baby wolf doesn’t pull a Princess and the Pea and lose sleep because his bed doesn’t feel right? 

Hamish shrugs in a very, “What? It’s done,” way and picks his coffee cup off the bookcase. 

Alex launches himself off the bed and throws his arms around Randall. “Tank you, Randoll!”

Randall gives him a big hug and whispers in his ear, “Hamish actually did it.”

“Oh!” 

He wriggles out of Randall’s arms and Hamish barely has time to put his coffee back down before Alex crashes into his legs with a quiet, “Tank you, Haymitch!”

“You’re welcome, Alex,” Hamish replies in a soft voice. “Want to get your hide off our bed and bring it in?”

Randall forgets sometimes how squeaky kids get when they’re excited. Alex just hit an octave only dolphins and Mariah Carey can reach as he tears out of the room. Any higher and the window would have shattered, just like Randall’s ear drum, but it’s cool. That’ll heal right up in no time.

Alex returns with not only his hide but both of their pillows which he drops on either side of his pillow and announces, “We all sleep here now!”

Awww, but also, there is no way they’re all going to fit on that bed. Their pillows barely fit on the bed. Randall is longer than the bed, so he knows Hamish is, too. Even if they curl up very tight on their sides like glued-together spoons, it’s… well, maybe… no, it’s not going to work. At all. 

Randall glances at Hamish, staring at the bed through narrowed eyes like it’s a complex philosophical conundrum he plans to debate to the death, and offers, “We can stay here until you -”

Their phones, along with every other phone in the house, buzzes or blurbs to life. 

_Temple. Now._


	6. In which Hamish is a hot dad, Alex is a sad cat, and everyone has big, big problems...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hi, hi!
> 
> So... some fluff and some angst... but also some plot finally. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been following along! I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe and healthy!

Logically, Randall knows Vera wants them all at the Temple because she found something about the werebear or the stuff from the basement, which is a good thing. What’s not such a good thing is that the second she sees Alex, she’s going to have a million questions. Good questions, totally fair and warranted questions, but there will also be some horrible truth uncovering questions thrown in there to thicken up the plot, and he would really, really like to spare Alex all of that. 

There is also a solid seventy percent chance Vera is going to point out a few weak points in his and Hamish’s plan to keep Alex forever even though she’d have to pry him out of Greybeard’s cold dead fingers. Well, Randall’s cold dead fingers. Greybeard would have bounced back to his locker by then. Not that it will come to that because Vera isn’t heartless, and they really are the only people who can keep Alex safe if someone comes after. Plus, you know, they all turn into wolves. Well, Alex turns into a wolf. They turn into … werewolves… but Alex is also… geez. Randall’s brain hurts. 

Over his shoulder, he catches a glimpse of Hamish tossing Alex in the air - too high, Hamish, they just got him, please don’t break him, but Alex just laughs so loud it startles every bird in the woods. Stealth is never going to be this kid’s strong suit, that’s for sure. 

Lilith grabs his elbow and yanks him to the right. “That is the third time I’ve had to stop you from walking into a bush.”

“I knew it was there,” Randall mumbles, shooting a glare in Nicole’s direction as she shakes her head at him. 

He should really pay attention to where he’s going but, one, he’s been wandering these woods on a daily basis since he was eighteen and, two, a rock or something just caught Alex’s eye and he’s dragging Hamish over to look at it. 

Hamish does a great job at pretending to be fascinated by the leaf Alex found - in Alex’s defense, the leaf is almost as big as his face and an impressive shade of bright, crisp green - as they deposit it into his backpack, which by Randall’s count now has three leaves, seven rocks, four sticks, a change of clothes in case Alex wolfs out or finds a mud puddle somewhere, a coloring book and crayons, a water bottle, and a granola bar. 

“So what are you guys going to do with him when Hamish has to teach?” she goes on. “Did your mom and dad find a place already? Are they going to watch him?”

Randall laughs. Sort of laughs. Tries to laugh. Whatever comes out of his mouth must not qualify as a laugh because Lilith looks weirded out and concerned. “I, uh, haven’t told my parents yet. Because of the whole wolfing out thing.”

Lilith scoffs. “Like that’ll change anything.”

“Can we not talk about it?”

“Sure,” she says easily. “I can watch him on Tuesdays while Hamish is teaching, if you want.”

Randall stumbles over his own feet. “ _ You _ want to babysit?”

“Fuck you,” she laughs, shoving him with her shoulder. “I used to babysit all the time in high school.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I was good at it,” she insists. “I made more money than a stripper. And I had to turn down, like, three different families a week.”

“So how am I just finding all of this out?”

She shrugs. “I forgot about it for a long time, and then it just seemed… too weird to be something I ever did and actually liked. You know?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry.” Randall throws his arm around her shoulders. “You’re still our adorable badass. Well, the first one. Gabrielle is also an adorable badass. Actually, you’re all kind of adorable badasses, but you’re -”

“Yeah, I got it, thanks. But seriously, talk to Hamish about it and let me know.”

Randall starts to offer payment via free meals when a new peal of laughter catches his attention. This time it’s over something Gabrielle must have said, she’s crouched down and whispering into his ear while Hamish shakes his head, grin softening but the lines linger on his face longer now that he’s older. Same with the creases at the corner of his eyes. Aging suits Hamish, though. He just gets better looking with every passing year and settles deeper into his Byronic - what? Randall took literature classes. He knows a character archetype when he sees one, don’t be so surprised, sheesh -, mysterious professor aesthetic. Growing up and older is a privilege for all of them and watching it happen in real time to Hamish, who Randall knows for a fact spent years being carefully nonchalant about his own mortality only to realize how badly he wanted to live, is more like an honor. 

“You know,” Nicole muses with a smile, “it looks like he’s two steps away from quitting his job to be a stay at home dad, so maybe you won’t be needing Lilith’s services.”

“He’s trying to make up for both of their childhood traumas,” Randall points out. 

“Has Alex said anything about all of that yet?”

Randall shakes his head. “We’ve just been asking about him, like his birthday and stuff. Hey, July ninetieth is actually the nineteenth, right?”

Lilith shrugs. “I’d go with that.”

“Does he know his last name?” Nicole asks. 

“Johnson,” he sighs. “Just like a billion other people in the continental United States and Canada. Fun fact, a lot of them are also named ‘Alex’ or ‘Alexander.’ Too bad we couldn’t find a kid with a super random name like ‘Hamish.’ But it’s weird, most kids know some part of their address and phone number at his age, and he didn’t have a clue about any of it.”

“It’s not weird if he was in that basement for a long time,” Lilith mumbles. “What about his parents’ names?”

“I don’t think his dad was in the picture. He’s only ever mentioned his mom, but -”

Something approximately three feet and some change tall and laughing madly at who knows what crashes into the back of Randall’s legs with enough force to make his knees buckle. The whole point of walking to the Temple instead of driving was to burn off some of Alex's energy, but if anything, he’s gotten more wound up, which is not how this is supposed to work. Fresh air is supposed to knock kids out, especially ones with short legs who’ve spent the entire trek showing off how fast they can run in their new light up shoes. 

Randall grabs Alex and hoists him up. “Hey, pipsqueak.”

  
“Wha’s a ‘pipsqueak?’” Alex asks breathlessly. 

“You,” Randall answers, jostling him till he laughs. “Did you win in the race?”

“Uh-huh,” Alex answers with a long, content sigh and rests his cheek on Randall’s shoulder, apparently content to be carried the rest of the way to the Temple. 

Jack catches up and yells, “He’s cheating, he has light up shoes!”

“No, I fast!”

“I want a rematch later,” Jack insists and adds in a lower voice to Randall, “He actually is pretty fast.”

“He had, like, eleven mini donuts earlier. Add that to the light up shoes and you never stood a chance.”

He catches Hamish’s approaching footsteps and glances up to see him striding over, Alex’s hide slung over his shoulder and backpack dangling from his fingers, casual and relaxed like he’s been doing this for years when it hasn’t even been a day. That’s how it’s always been with them - ignore the clock, don’t look down, fit a lifetime into a night, an hour, a minute, don’t look back - so there’s no reason this would be any different, but it never fails to amaze Randall that he’s the one Hamish is walking towards with a smile edging into smirk territory like it so often does. Like he won the game three moves ago and no one has a clue. Like he’s getting away with something. 

Randall presses his lips to the corner of Hamish’s mouth, at least that’s what he meant to do but Hamish turns at the least minute so the kiss actually lands on his lips. He’s got moves, that Hamish Carpio-Duke. 

Hamish pulls away only to slip his arm around Randall’s waist and ask Alex, “Want a drink?”

“No tanks,” Alex mumbles. Oh, hey, he finally sounds tired! “Are we dere yet?”

“Almost,” Randall assures him, mouthing to Hamish, “Are his eyes open?”

The grin is back as he shakes his head. “I can’t say that I blame him after the day he’s had.”

But once they get to Belgrave Hall, Alex is wide awake and pulling at his hide. “I need dis, please.”

“Why?” Hamish asks, brow knit with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Dis is a bad place,” he mumbles, knuckles going white as he pulls harder. “Please, I need dis.”

Randall looks around but he doesn’t see or smell anything weird. He comes here a lot, though, maybe it’s just because on the outside, the building looks like a place where you go to get stabbed while trying to buy drugs. 

Hamish grabs Alex’s hands. “It’s not bad, I promise.”

“Smells bad,” he whimpers. “Please, I have dis?”

“It’s probably just new,” Jack says quietly, slipping around them towards the fence. “I’ll look around just in case.”

“Thanks,” Hamish mumbles as he opens Alex’s backpack. “Throw his shoes in here before he transforms.” 

Randall pulls off Alex’s shoes - whoever invented velcro should be knighted and sainted and crowned and medaled and all that jazz - and wraps the hide around him. He barely gets it all the way down his back before it ripples and he gets a lick to the nose for his efforts. And the cheek. And the forehead, and the eyebrows, and he barely hears the girls gushing about how cute and sad Alex is over his own laughter - he’s sniffing Randall’s eyelashes hardcore, what the hell? -, “Alex, dude, that tickles, knock it off!”

  
Alex swivels around to give Hamish’s face a bath, plus a paw to the chin, and if Randall lets himself think too long about how happy Alex is that they let him wear his hide and that his hide was ever kept from him in the first place, he’s going to have to go rip a tree out of the ground, sharpen it into a big stake, and run it through Bashmet and whoever this bad lady is. Regenerate that, you piece of shit. (Bad word, but the bad lady deserves it.)

Now that Hamish has been sufficiently smothered in baby werewolf affection, Alex must remember there’s a haunted house looming in the background, eyes going wide and ears going flat against his head.

“I work in there, you know,” Hamish says casually, taking him from Randall and smoothing his hand over his hackles. “I’ve got a big desk and a couch and snacks and everything.”

The cowering stops at the word, “snacks,” and you know, for having absolutely no biological relation to Randall, he and Alex have a  _ lot _ in common. They’re both inherently suspicious of magic, they both like sleeping on Hamish, they both eat like bottomless pits - not like they have tapeworms, Hamish -, and when they’re offered snacks  _ and _ quality Hamish time, all their problems disappear. 

But just in case he’s still uncomfortable - the world is big and he is small and the only magic he’s probably seen besides transformations has been murder and housework -, Randall strokes a finger down Alex’s muzzle and asks, “How about Greybeard goes first?”

Alex drops his head onto Hamish’s shoulder with an affirmative grunt and two wags of his tail. 

Randall glances around to make sure they’re still the only ones milling about before ducking under the fence, tosses his clothes to Jack for safekeeping, and Greybeard promptly rips the chain link fence out of the ground so Hamish and Alex won’t have to crawl under it. Which, aww, that’s super polite, Greybeard, but also, what the  fuck heck, dude? (Damn, this whole not cussing thing is hard.) They’ve been crawling through that fence for years, kids love crawling under things, this wasn’t a problem.

Hamish rolls his eyes at him. "This is why people hate us."

  
It’s cute that he thinks he cares. Almost as cute as Alex squirming to be put down so he can run circles around Graybeard and weave in and out of his legs like a cat while  Greybeard swats at Alex’s ears, teeth bared in a snarling grin. 

Alex bites at his hand and tugs him toward the Temple. Or the aforementioned snacks, that’s more likely, but at least he’s not terrified anymore. 

The Temple smells empty with the exception of Vera - silk and suede, tuberose, vanilla laced bourbon - but Greybeard snaps at Alex to hang back while he scopes everything out, eyes peeled for flickers of movement in the halls, bubbles or splashes from the bottles of liquor behind the bar hinting at retreating footsteps or a recent touch by a hand other than Vera’s, glistening watermarks on the bar and tables. He searches for muffled voices behind closed doors, pages crinkling as they turn, the scratch of a pen on paper, but all he hears is the crisp clunk of a cup against a desk coming from Vera’s office and the barely-there squeak of her chair as she settles in with her coffee. Hamish’s coffee, technically, Randall bought him a bunch of the weirdest, fanciest coffee beans he could find for his birthday last year and this one smells like the one from Hawaii.

He tries to catch a whiff of the hides or anything else that was taken from the house - blood and cold concrete - but it’s tucked deep enough in the Reliquary that Greybeard barely picks it up. It doesn't mean Alex couldn't smell it, especially if it's familiar to him, but it doesn't seem likely. Maybe it's just what Jack said, it's all new and unfamiliar and not necessarily related to Bashmet and Co. 

The doors to Vera’s office lurch open to beckon them onward. 

Casual Vera is gone and they’re back to crisp, dark clothes, pointy heels, impeccably smooth, sleek hair, and a big, bright grin at the sight of Alex, OK, wait, that’s very new. 

“Well, well, well,” she stands and comes out from behind her desk, “what do we have here?”

Alex glances up at Greybeard, waiting for him to scare the new lady off, but she’s fine. She’s practically in the pack, and she has fancy chocolate in her desk. She gave Randall a few pieces once because she didn’t like the filling and didn’t want to throw it away. If Alex turns back, she’ll probably let him have a piece, too, and they can go raid Hamish’s snack drawer and color on some spell books or the - whoa, Greybeard, no coloring on spell books.

Greybeard would roll his eyes if he could. 

Alex shivers and de-wolfs. At least Randall thinks Alex de-wolfed. Oh, yeah, there are his arms wrapping around Greybeard’s legs. Tight, aww, buddy, Vera is cool! Don’t be scared. 

“Vera, this is Alex,” Hamish introduces. He gives Alex a reassuring smile and adds, “Vera’s a friend.”

Vera keeps her distance, opting to kneel down and address Alex directly, “Hi there, handsome.”

“I not ‘handsome,’” a little voice squeaks out from under the hide, “I ‘Alex.’ I stay wid Randoll-and-Haymitch. Dey got me a bed, and light up shoes, and stuffed aminals, and donuts.””

“Wow,” she gasps, eyes flicking up to Hamish’s, “sounds like you’re all set, huh?”

He nods so enthusiastically his hide slips all the way down over his head. 

Hamish chuckles and pulls it back enough so Alex can see. “I hope you don’t mind if he tags along with me for the foreseeable future.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find something for this little Acolyte to do,” she muses. The sweetness drops from her voice as she says to Greybeard, “There better be clothes for you in that backpack.”

She says that like she’s never seen him naked before. Actually, she’s probably seen him naked more times than she’s seen Hamish naked at this point… 

“Well, Alex,” Vera stands, “some of what we have to discuss is not appropriate for little ears. Maybe Mr. Big, Bad Wolf here can take you to Hamish’s office to play for a few minutes.”

Alex snatches his backpack from Hamish and pats Greybeard’s leg. “Let’s get snacks, Graybird!”

And there goes Randall and Greybeard’s badass factor. Awesome. 

Greybeard snarls at Gabrielle to stop laughing. And Lilith. And, seriously, everyone, it’s not that funny and he’ll probably mess up their names way worse. Except Midnight’s, that’s pretty easy to say. 

Anyone else calling him ‘Graybird’ and expecting to get a free ride around the building would get their throats slashed. He hopes Alex appreciates that and glowers at anyone - everyone, it’s everyone - who dares laugh as he stalks, OK, let’s be real. There is no way to walk menacingly when you have a small child sitting on your foot and hugging your leg. Greybeard is walking like a werewolf pirate who outgrew his peg leg. It’s not scary, and it is nothing short of a tragedy that he can’t kill the Knights+2 and Vera, minus Hamish, for witnessing such a sight.

Ugh. 

It is such a good thing Alex is cute. When he’s a less cute, sassy teenager, Randall will have to remind him of this moment, “Hey, remember when I lost all my werewolf street cred because of you, you little twerp?”

Once they get to Hamish’s office, Randall turns back into himself and grabs his emergency sweatpants out of the closet. The instant Alex gets his shorts on, he runs to Hamish’s desk and goes straight to the snack drawer, eyes going wide with delight as he yells, “Randoll, dere’s cheese crackers in here!”

Randall scoffs and pretends to be skeptical. “No way!”

“Uh-huh! Come see!”

He crosses the room and plops into Hamish’s chair, pulling Alex onto his lap for a bird’s eye view of the snack drawer. Let’s see, they’ve got… cheese crackers, as already noted, granola bars, dried fruit, some of those oatmeal energy balls, pretzels, nothing terribly exciting, but how wild can you get with shelf-stable pantry items? 

Alex grabs the crackers and opens the pack with more care and precision than most surgeons Randall’s observed and assisted. “I like cheese.”

No kidding… 

Randall pours them out over the desk so they’re easier for him to eat. “What else do you like to eat?”

“Umm… I like… lotsa stuff.”

“What about broccoli?”

“With cheesy rice?” Alex asks, looking up to fix Randall with a hopeful stare, and how can Randall say no to that? “And chicken?”

Of all the meals to get excited about, he picks that one? Not pizza, tacos, chicken nuggets, ice cream, pancakes, no, Alex is genuinely psyched about some kind of chicken and rice situation. Don’t get Randall wrong, he’s relieved Alex will eat something other than junk food and sugar, and there’s rice in their cupboard and broccoli in the freezer. They got plenty of cheese earlier. Plus, like he said, it’s sort of healthy. Ish. Depending on the ratio of cheese to everything else. He might be able to sneak some other vegetables in there.

He’s still staring at Randall with big, wide open eyes, brimming with excitement and twitching against the need to blink. 

Randall laughs, shaking his head. “If that’s what you want, then, sure, baby wolf.”

“I not a baby wolf!” he chirps with a giggle, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

“You’re  _ my _ baby wolf.” Randall pokes him in the ribs, smiling when he laughs harder. “And Hamish’s, but mostly mine.”

Over the sounds of Alex’s laughter and the conversation happening in the other room - 

> “Are we positive that there is no chance of reuniting Alex with his family?”
> 
> “He doesn’t have any,” Hamish replies. “He said they’re gone and asked if he was staying with us.”
> 
> There’s a stretch of silence before Vera sighs. “‘Gone’ can mean a lot of things, Hamish.”
> 
> “That basement was covered in blood.”
> 
> “And we don’t know whose it is. We have a good guess,” she adds, louder and firmer, “but I am asking you to prepare yourself for the possibility. That’s all.”
> 
> Another beat passes before Gabrielle clears her throat. “We set up wards on Elena Pineau’s house before we left. Whoever shows up looking for Alex won’t be leaving in one piece.”
> 
> “As cruel as the Bashmets have proven to be, it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t return at all,” Vera sighs. “Most of the hides are damaged. All of them have been inscribed with sigils and incantations. With the right skill set, it would...”

\- is the sound of gasping, heaving breath from the Reliquary. 

Heavy footsteps padding against the floor, the click of claws against the tile. 

Cracks and pops, a spine uncurling.

Jaws snapping. 

Alex’s hide whips off Randall’s shoulder with enough force to send a few crackers flying and retreats under it, mumbling something so quietly Randall misses it completely. 

More importantly, there is someone or something in the Reliquary who will be trying to get out and he needs to get Alex somewhere safe. 

He carries Alex back toward Vera’s office but hits a wall of Hamish at the doorway. 

“There’s -”

“I heard it.” Hamish moves so he can pass, glancing toward the Reliquary as he rubs Alex’s back. “We’ve got a necromancer.”

Randall looks at him sharply. “Hamish, we’re the only ones in here.”

“We’ve got a really powerful necromancer,” Hamish amends in a dark voice. 

Midnight prowls at the entrance of Vera’s office, leering at the Reliquary’s doors, licking his lips in anticipation. His nose twitching as they pass is the only indication he notices them at all until he noses his way under the head of Alex’s hide to snuffle his hair, oh, so it’s OK when Midnight does it but when Greybeard does cute werewolf things, it’s hilarious. Right. Makes total sense. Glad they cleared that up. 

Glass shatters in the Reliquary, plinking and crunching as it crashes to the ground.

Alex whimpers and curls into a ball in Randall’s arms. 

Randall holds him tighter and nudges Midnight with his shoulder. “Go get Timber and Silverback and stir shit up, I’ll guard the office. From inside,” he adds to Hamish’s impending argument. “You should go, too.”

Hamish glances at Alex and back at Randall. “I -”

“Go,” Randall repeats. “Just … be careful.”

Hamish hesitates, but the thing in the Reliquary just flipped a bookcase by the sound of it. If there’s one thing Randall knows Hamish cannot stand - actually, there are a lot of things Hamish cannot stand, he’s a very particular creature -, it’s disrespect for ancient tomes and magical artifacts in his own Temple. Also, Hamish and Alyssa spent nearly two months inventorying and organizing the stuff in the Reliquary, hence the murderous look on his face right about now. At least if he’s mad he won’t feel guilty or torn about splitting up. 

He gives Alex’s arm a squeeze and Randall another kiss and, wait, he's leaving? Just... just like that? 

It’s too quick, he doesn’t care if Hamish murmurs, “Be right back,” that’s not a good enough goodbye for either of them. What if… look, Alex is terrified, OK, and Hamish is just walking away. A hot, heavy tear just hit Randall’s chest, Hamish can’t just walk away like that. 

He’s about to drag him back when Hamish turns around and leans in so close Randall’s eyes close, but instead of a kiss he gets a whisper, “I love you,” and the kiss lands on Alex’s head with a soft, “Everything will be OK, I promise.”

That’s better but Randall has a hard time not pulling him back anyway. 

This is so dumb, they do this stuff all the time, why is it so hard to watch Hamish walk away? 

Silverback brushes past him, Timber right on his heels. Neither of them look back, but they’re used to this. Tundra is, too, he's been doing this for centuries, but he looks back. Or Hamish does, maybe. 

Midnight gives him a sidelong glance as he goes after them and a snarl that can only be an order to get baby wolf inside already, you idiot, so at least he can always count on Midnight and Gabrielle being well-intentioned assholes. 

A tiny whimper escapes the hide once the doors close them in, and how can such a small sound hit him so hard? 

He gives into the urge to kiss the top of Alex’s head and breathes him in for a long minute. His hair smells like Hamish, just a little, but it’s there and it’s enough to make his brain stutter and trip against the strange new surge of  _ oursoursours _ floating through his brain. And it’s a stark snap back to the reality of their situation, that Hamish isn’t here, he’s out there, tearing monsters - there’s more than one, there has to by the sounds of shrieking and rasping and growling, how do Alyssa and Nicole do this? - into pieces, and he’s probably OK. He’s probably fine, just throwing down and kicking ass, but he should be here, with them, this is so much harder than Randall thought it was going to be. He owes Hamish a much, much bigger apology for what he said yesterday in the car. 

Fresh tears pool in Alex’s eyes as he stares up at him. “Is Haymitch gonna come back?”

Vera’s sharp inhale from the door suddenly reminds him they’re not the only ones here, he’s supposed to be guarding the door. Not that Vera can’t. Or Nicole, she’s over there casting wards with Alyssa, who has literally broken into this Temple and stolen Vera’s power, so she definitely doesn’t need his help.    
  


“Yeah,” Randall breathes, brushing away the tears. “I’m pretty sure he will. It’s still scary, though, huh?”

“Mhmm.” Alex sniffs and holds up his hide. “Wanna hide wiff me?”

More than anything, but what he says is, “I’ve gotta stay out here in case the girls need some help.” 

More glass breaks outside, followed by glugs of liquid sloshing on the floor and over the -

“Not my fucking bar!” Vera cries, throwing the door open and storming into the lobby. “You’re supposed to be protecting the Temple, not destroying - oh, don’t you even!”

And now there is fire. 

Alex’s eyes go wide. “Veeya mad.”

“That’s actually good for us. Anyway, if you need to hide, or wolf out, or cry some more, or go smash stuff in Hamish’s office once the baddies are gone,” there we go, there’s that laugh, “I’ll be right there with you. Deal?”

“Deal!” Alex agrees, rubbing his head on the underside of Randall’s jaw. If Greybeard hadn’t done the same thing to Tundra and vice versa a hundred times before, he’d be rethinking Alex’s baby wolf status and wondering if he was a little lion cub instead. 

Randall tips his head up and rubs their noses together like Alex did last night. He gets the biggest hug from the littlest body in return, and as worried as he is about crushing Alex - kids are so small, how do they live? -, he can’t help squeezing him back just as hard. 

At first he thinks the pale furred figure growling at the door is Tundra, and he's about to tell Alex to look when Alyssa and Nicole scramble backward.

Because it’s definitely not Tundra. 

This werewolf is much smaller, thinner, shaking like this is the first time they've stood on two legs. They're missing an eye, too, taken no doubt in the same blow that left the scar mangling the skin of the werewolf’s muzzle and exposing its canines in a permanent snarl. The remaining eye is milky white, covered in a thick film that it can’t possibly see out of. 

And their fur isn’t totally white, it’s streaked with red and gold, missing in patches. Thick cords of gray scars wind down their shoulders to their chest, like… like someone tried to rip their skin in half, right down their spine. 

“Mommy?”

The werewolf’s head snaps in their direction. 

Randall stands, slowly. “Alex, I don’t think -”

The werewolf whines, high and shaky, looking around for the source of the sound. 

“Mommy!”   
  


Her ears flick towards them. 

She takes a tentative step, sniffing, and another. And Randall should move, Greybeard should be crawling out of his skin, he should be screaming for help and stuffing Alex under the desk for safe keeping, but he can’t. He’s frozen, standing there and holding Alex tight in his arms as his… mom… limps closer.

He doesn’t stop Alex from reaching for her, tiny hands disappearing in the fur on her neck.

He doesn’t yank Alex away when she lowers her head to rest against his, eyes slipping closed as she whimpers. 

She doesn’t have a smell. She… she’s smaller than their wolves, much smaller, thinner, and she's shaking all over, what did they do to her?

“I OK, Mommy,” Alex whispers. “I stay with Randoll-and-Haymitch. Dey got me a bed and we gonna have cheesy rice with broccly and chicken for dinner.”

Something about that makes her sigh so deep her bones rattle. Randall hopes it’s relief. That must be his favorite. She probably made it for him a hundred times, and Alex didn’t have a bed in that basement, that must have killed her. Knowing her little boy was sleeping on a hard floor without his hide to comfort him, without her to watch over him.

Randall meets the werewolf’s eye and finds her staring back at him, unseeing and somehow still studying him. 

“I their baby wolf.”

She sways, and Randall wants it to still be relief, but she’s hanging on by a thread. However she’s standing here, however she came back, she won’t hang on much longer. She’s waiting for something, holding on for something…

The hide slips away and pools on the floor, leaving Alex’s mom standing before them, a gray cast to her skin, limp, dark red hair hanging over her shoulders, sunken eyes and cheeks but even dead, she looks so young to be a mom. 

He barely frees an arm in time to catch her as her legs give away, falling against him and reaching weakly to touch Alex’s face. 

“Hi, puppycup,” she rasps, eyes slipping closed in a heavy, long blink. 

Alex holds her hand, sniffing hard. “Last time?”

She replies with a single nod and fixes her eyes on Randall. “He’s not allergic to… anything but he doesn’t like sour stuff. He’s scared of… storms and… the dark. He can’t… he can’t swim. He was going to take lessons but… you have to teach him to swim.”

“Yeah,” Randall answers immediately. “Yeah, we’ll teach him.”

Tundra barrels towards them but it’s Hamish, blood as dark as tar smeared over the lower half of his face, who crosses the room more cautiously, eyes locked onto Randall’s - say the word and he’ll attack - but Randall nods for him to come closer. 

Alex reaches for him and once Hamish has him, Randall adjusts his hold on Alex’s mom before she slips out of his arms. 

She coughs, body caving in with the loss of breath. “I promised to take him to Disneyworld for his fifth birthday. Can you... can you take him?”

“We’ll take him,” Hamish assures her. “July nineteenth, right? Next year?”

She nods and turns her head toward Alex, smiling weakly. “How much… do I love you?”

“To the moon and back,” Alex murmurs, leaning closer to hug her. “I love you, too, Mommy.”

Randall glances at Hamish. “Can we do anything? Like a, a healing spell or something?”

Hamish’s eyes say no but he gingerly places a hand over her heart - Randall barely hears it beating, pumping at a sluggish, labored pace - and whispers, “ _ Restittuatur _ .” 

And when nothing happens, he tries, “ _ Reparetur.”  _

He keeps trying, muttering incantations Randall’s never heard with increasing desperation - her heart gets slower and harder, her breathing gets faster and shallower -, spell after spell failing until she grabs his hand and chokes out, “No yelling, he… his dad used to yell and it scared him. Please don't yell at him."

"We won't," Randall promises. 

She reaches towards Alex. “How much?”

“To the moon and back,” he whispers. 

“More…” She coaxes him closer to press a kiss to his nose. Touch her nose to his like she’s rubbing it in - Randall’s eyes burn, everything blurs, but he can’t look away - and adds in a wisp of breath, “So much more.”

Her heart stops. 

Her body goes limp, head resting against Alex’s, arms slack around him. 

Hamish draws a breath, probably to try another spell but Randall cuts him off with a shake of his head. It’s over. There’s… the only thing they can do now is bury her. Leave the hallway light on at night for Alex. Start planning that birthday trip and find a pool where they can teach him to swim. Hunt the Bashmets down make them suffer the longest, slowest, most painful death they can imagine. 

Alex’s bottom lip quivers, eyes gleaming - they’re going to get through a day without something breaking his heart, Randall doesn’t care what he has to do to make it happen - as he curls into Hamish, crying against his chest.

Call it a personal flaw, but as much as it stings to see him cry, as gutting as it is to hear him whimpering over Hamish’s attempts to comfort him, Randall is sick with relief that he isn’t staring at her. Alex doesn’t need to see his mom’s dead body. Again, it sounds like this has happened at least once before, he didn’t need to see it the first time, he never should have seen any of this. 

A hand curls around his arm and Jack’s voice offers to take her body to the other room. Randall should do it, he owes that to her, but he needs to tell Hamish he did everything he could and it was enough, she knows her son will be safe and loved, that will always be enough. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. 

He wraps one arm around Hamish, squeezes his shoulder - he’s here, this is awful and it stings on so many levels, but he’s here, they’re in this together - and the other around Alex, rubbing his back as murmurs, “I’m so sorry, Alex.” 

Alex bursts into heavy, body wracking sobs. 

No amount of petting his hair, rocking him, or hugging him registers. 

He cries and cries, face buried in the curve of Hamish’s neck and hands balled into fists around his hide, shuddering and sniffling and heaving in big, shaky gulps of air. 

It’s awful and it’s heartbreaking, and Randall can’t think of a single thing to say or do to make this less awful and heartbreaking. And Hamish looks just as lost as he is, just as gutted, and there isn’t much he can do for Hamish either. He tries to think of something to say, something to whisper in his ear - it’s not his fault, there was never anything he could do to help her, it was too late, he tried and someday that’s going to mean the world to Alex -, but all he manages to do is bump his head against Hamish’s. He’s there, and it might not count for much, but that’s all he can do right now. Stand here, hold them both, until he figures out what to do or say to make this moment pass faster. 

Hamish’s hand finds his where it’s been resting on Alex’s back - he’s here, he can’t make up for the loss of his mom, but he’s here and he’ll do everything he can to make sure Alex never hurts like this again - and squeezes, clings like a lifeline. An anchor. He can be that for him. 

It feels like hours pass before Alex quiets, and somehow it’s just as hard to stomach as his crying. But this part, this part Randall actually knows how to handle. This part he can do. Gently pushing Alex’s hide back to expose his red, tear-streaked face so he can dry his cheeks. Grabbing the packet of tissues from his backpack for his nose and pressing the water bottle to the back of his neck. The last thing the poor kid needs is a post-bawl headache. 

Alex doesn’t shy away from the cool plastic against his skin so it must feel good, or he’s too drained to be bothered. The weight and length of his blinks point towards exhaustion, but the white-knuckled grip that shifted from his hide to Hamish’s hand hints at the former, so maybe he just doesn’t care about anything other than Hamish at this point. Call it another personal flaw that he’s relishing it right after Alex’s mom used the last dregs of air in her lungs to tell them everything she thought they needed to know about raising Alex, but at this point, he’ll take a win wherever they can get it. 

(Also, he totally gets it - see, one more thing he and Alex have in common. When they’re sad, they just want to cling to Hamish like a koala.)

Hamish lets out a long, heavy sigh and leans against Randall. “Aside from the obvious, are you OK?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Pulled something in my shoulder,” he mumbles. “Gabrielle ran off to steal the mouthwash out of my desk before I could check on her, but everyone else is fine.”

“Who started the fire?”

“Timber." 

Uhh... "Timber?"

"Timber breathes fire now."

Randall looks at him sharply. “Timber does  _ what _ ?”

Hamish shrugs, immediately grunts in pain and hisses, “Must be a demon thing.”

“No shit?” Randall rolls his eyes and drops a kiss to Hamish’s shoulder, muttering a healing spell against his skin. “I always miss the cool stuff.”

“Lilith is a little shaken up about it.” Hamish tests a roll of his shoulder. “At least I think she is, Vera pulled her aside before I could talk to her.”

“Well, one terrifyingly powerful woman can probably relate to another better than you can.”

Hamish snorts and shakes his head, glancing down at Alex. “I probably shouldn’t be holding him while I am naked and covered in blood.”

“We spend a lot of time naked and covered in blood,” Randall points out, but he holds his arms out to Alex. “Hamish is gross.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“Super gross,” Randall goes on, settling Alex on his hip as Hamish puts on the shorts and shirt Randall was wearing earlier. 

Alex’s head flops onto Randall’s shoulder. “Are the bad people gonna come back?”

Hamish glances at Randall. “They…?”

“They might,” Randall finishes. “But they’re really scared of us, so they’re not going to get anywhere near you. Know why?”

Alex shakes his head. 

“Because we’re superheroes,” Randall replies in a loud whisper. 

A wet chuckle escapes Alex’s lips.

“We are! We’re the Knights of St. Christopher. Hamish, give him the spiel.”

Hamish clears his throat. “We are a sacred gender neutral collective anointed to fight dark magic with the power of all the knights who came before us.”

“Wow!” 

Randall grins at Hamish over Alex’s head. “Also, we’re werewolves.”

“I know dat,” Alex laughs. 

“What?” Hamish demands, mouth gaping in fake outrage. “Who told you?”

“I saw!”

Hamish sighs like someone just used one of his priceless first edition books as a coaster and throws Alex over his shoulder and makes like he’s carrying him away. “You know too much, and you made a mess on my desk. Say ‘Good-bye, cruel world!’”

“No,” Alex squeals through his laughter. “Randoll spilled the crackers!”

“Dude,” Randall groans and pushes himself off the couch to follow them to the bar which is magically clean and sadly empty save a few lonely bottles of tequila and white wine. “You don’t narc on a fellow Knight!”

“He’s right,” Hamish agrees solemnly. “That’s three strikes, kiddo.”

“But I not a Knight, I just a baby wolf.”

“Are you?” Hamish asks, like this is all news to him, and sets Alex down on bar top, and frowns. “Guess I can’t turn you into a cracker and feed you to Tundra.”

“You can’t eat me, Haymitch, I your baby wolf.”

“Obviously.” Hamish wets a towel and wipes Alex’s face in light, gentle strokes. “That is why I’d turn you into a cracker first.”

The noise Alex makes can only be described as a cackle. Seriously. This kid’s laugh is a riot. Randall has never heard anyone laugh like this in his life, not even the girls when they’re hammered and laughing so hard they cry. Especially not at Hamish - he’s rarely anything beyond amusing and clever, he makes up for it in sex appeal and brains - so hopefully this little display doesn’t go straight to his head and lead him to believe he’s funny, even if Alex laughs so hard that Randall can’t help joining in anyway. 

He grabs Alex around the middle and whispers in his ear, “Tell him you’re too cute to turn into a cracker.”

“I too cute to be a cracker.”

Hamish hums, tilting his head as he gives his face one more pass with the towel, and boops his nose, and how much sweeter can these two get before Randall’s brain short circuits once and for all? 

“It’s official, you’re too cute to eat,” Hamish concedes. “All jokes aside, I can’t promise you bad things won’t happen, but Randall and I will always do everything in our power to protect you.”

“And you won’t go away?”

Hamish’s eyes flick up to meet Randall’s. “Not for a very long time if we can help it.”

That must be acceptable to Alex because the next thing that comes out of his mouth is, “You gotta clean your face, too, Haymitch. You still gross.”

“He is,” Randall agrees whole-heartedly - he  _ finally _ has someone to troll Hamish with him, he loves this kid so much - and snatches the towel. “Here, I’ll help.”

Hamish rolls his eyes but he does lean over the bar to make Randall’s job easier. Considering this might be the closest they get to their usual apres-kill routine and they might be reduced to quickies in the backseat of a car or on the living room floor for a while, he better wipe that smirk off Hamish’s face, too, while he’s at it.

It takes a bit of scrubbing to get the dried blood off his face, less for the splatter on his throat, more for his fingers. He’s a lot gentler than Alex, who found a towel somewhere and decided to help by scrubbing the blood and first layer of skin off Hamish’s other hand. He’s very focused, though, tongue poking out of his mouth and face scrunched in concentration. 

Alyssa flops onto the barstool next to Alex, flipping through a thick stack of papers. “Good news, that spell to automatically update our inventory records worked. Bad news, we won’t know if it’s right unless we recount everything.”

“Wonderful,” Hamish deadpans. 

“I know, but if we…”

If they, what? 

Randall glances up and finds Alyssa glancing between him and Hamish and Alex, biting her lip but the smile breaks out over her face anyway. 

She leans forward on her elbows and asks Alex, “What are you doing?”

“Haymitch is gross,” he mumbles. “Randoll and I are helping.”

“Oh,” she breathes. “You’re doing a way better job than Randall.”

Yeah, well, Randall’s brain is permanently rewired to see blood on Hamish and think, “I should lick that,” so forgive him if he’s working a little less efficiently than usual. He has urges to suppress. 

“It would take way longer if that was Randall,” Gabrielle mumbles as she vaults over the bar to inspect the surviving bottles. "He's permanently gross."

“Excuse you, I wash my hands a million times a day,” Randall argues. 

“That has nothing to do with that’s gross about you.” 

He wants to argue, but… primal urges. 

Jack slips into the chair next to Randall and says in a low voice, “We’ve got a problem.”

“Just one?” 

“A big one,” Jack clarifies, holding up his phone. “Listen to this.”

Randall starts to take it, but his hands are obviously damp and also smudged with zombie werewolf blood, so he motions for Jack to just hold it up to his ear. 

_ “Congratulations, Jack, you are going to make quite the _ -”

The voicemail cuts off with an incoming call that Randall somehow and not entirely purposefully manages to answer with his cheek. 

“You have something that belongs to me,” a cool, matter-of-fact feminine voice announces. 

“Uh…” Randall stares at Jack. “Jack’s not here, I just-”

“Randall Carpio-Duke, only son of Maria and Joseph Carpio. Top of his class at Albany High School. Graduated summa cum laude from Belgrave University and -”

“Wow, you Googled me,” Randall rolls his eyes. “Did Geek Squad show you how to do that or did you figure it out all by yourself?”

“Oh, I think you’ll find that I’m quite capable of learning many things on my own. For instance, your dad lost his job when you were seven and your family was barely making ends meet. Your parents gave you a glass of milk every night before bed, and they said it was to help you grow up big and strong, but really it was because they barely had enough money to feed you. Milk is cheap and filling, and they didn’t want you to go to bed hungry.  So now when you are feeling a little… sad, or lost, or lonely, you drink a glass of milk so you can make yourself feel big and strong and remember you can get through anything.”

What. The. Fuck.

The woman goes on, “You are in possession of a young shapeshifter and a book from the demon realm, you killed Elizabeth Kepler, and that low-grade soul bond you made with your husband won’t be enough to keep him from dying.”

Every drop of blood in Randall’s body turns to ice. 

“Poor Alexander,” she tuts. “You’re right about his mother, she was only seventeen when she had him. But she was quite the momma bear.  The first and last time Alex’s father hit him, there was a hellacious fight that ended with his hide burning in the fireplace and his body dumped in a lake.”

Fingers brush against his and he clings to them. 

“You can see why we thought she’d be an asset to our cause. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it past the first round of our trials, but someday you can tell Alex how hard she fought to stay with him. She figured out how to stretch a single summoning out to see her little boy to safety. Well, relative safety. That depends on you doing exactly what I say.”

Alex is completely oblivious - good - to anything happening this side of the bar. Alyssa, too, she and Gabrielle are showing him their painted nails. 

Jack whispers, “Don't let her psych you out. She doesn’t actually know the future, she just sees all the different ways it can play out and the probability of each one.”

Was that supposed to make Randall feel better?!

“Who?” Hamish demands, thumb brushing over Randall’s knuckles. 

“Miss Marand.”

Hamish snorts. “Sounds like a dominatrix…”

“I don’t know her name, but she’s the one who went after Alyssa and me freshman year.”

Randall slips his fingers between Hamish’s and squeezes his hand as he asks the woman, “What do you want?”

“I want everything you took from my associate’s home returned to me, including the boy. I also want that book, the sword you glamored to look like a baseball bat, all of which I will collect in a parlay with Vera Stone. You and your pack will be in chains.” 

“And if we refuse?”

“Then I will crush your husband’s heart in my fist and stomp the life out of Jack and Alyssa’s baby girl before she takes her first breath.”

Randall’s lip curls. “You’d never get close enough.”

“That isn’t a problem. Just ask Jack.”

He would but Jack’s head is in his hands. 

Hamish whispers, “She can have everything except Alex.”

Before he can repeat it, she says airily, “That’s fine, as long as you find me another shapeshifter or figure out how to get me one of your hides. I’ll even give you time to explore your options. Oh, and by the way,” she huffs out a breathy chuckle, “watching Hamish die might kill you, but at least you’ll get to say goodbye.”


	7. In which Randall and the Knights get a heist right and what is Hamish teaching their child...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys... 
> 
> I am SO sorry to leave you hanging on that cliffhanger. 
> 
> I had intended to post this on last week but I had a major emergency with my horse, he had to go to the hospital, it's been A Thing. He's mostly OK now, so hopefully I can get back to more regular updates. (Don't tell him I said that, he is mad at me for taking him away even though it saved his life, how dare I want him to live...)
> 
> So, the next few chapters will mostly be slice of life type stuff, so we've got fluff and smut and good vibes ahead for a while!
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me :D

This is so not how Randall thought his day was going to go when he woke up this morning.

  
Right now, Randall should be making dinner and listening to Hamish and Alex playing in the background. Then he’d be doing laundry. He could probably rope Alex into helping. They could play laundry basketball and Alex could wrap himself up in the towels straight from the dryer. Then the three of them could snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie - he's narrowed it down to _The Incredibles,_ _Toy Story_ , or _The Sword in the Stone_ because they’re the least tragic and problematic off the top of his head -, and after tucking baby wolf in, he planned on spending the rest of the night with Hamish’s dick in some orifice of his body until he passed out from sexhaustion. He doesn’t even care that he has to work tomorrow and his job involves lots of walking, talking, crouching, et cetera, et cetera. 

But what is Randall doing?

Randall is sitting in the passenger seat of Gabrielle’s Tesla with a deathgrip on the oh-shit handle because, yeah, time is of essence, but he’d also really like to not die before he defeats the lady who threatened his husband, son, and future niece - Jack and Alyssa didn’t want to know the gender. Talk about a dick move - blasting Ariana Grande and pretending he’s not imagining eleven thousand horrible ways he’d have to watch Hamish die and unlocking a whole new level of gratitude of sunglasses because every last one of them makes his eyes water.

“So are we ever going to talk about the fact that the Order must have pulled some kind of shit on the Knights like Bashmet did to Alex’s mom?” Lilith calls from the backseat. 

The leather squeaks as Randall turns around to face her. “How do you figure?”

“Look at Alex, then look at us,” she replies. “He’s an adorable puppy, we’re magic-detecting monsters.”

“He might grow into it,” Nicole muses. 

Don’t get Randall wrong, he wants Alex to grow up and be the best werewolf he can be, but he’s going to be bummed if he loses his tail. He gets it, tails are a distinct tactical disadvantage - years ago, the Knights had a long, drunk discussion about how annoying it would be to be fighting someone and all the sudden they pull your tail - but it’s also just really cute. 

Randall settles back into his seat and asks Gabrielle, “What’s Midnight say?”

“His mom is supposed to teach him how to hit the halfway point,” Gabrielle answers, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “But sometimes when they do, they can’t go full wolf again, so a lot of werewolves stopped doing it. Now they probably don't even remember how.”

Does Greybeard remember how?

Nothing but a yawn and crickets. 

Thanks, Greybeard.

_ You should focus on the task at hand.  _

Randall doesn’t want to focus on the task at hand. 

_ You volunteered and your pack agreed that you are the best choice because they trust you to use these powers responsibly.  _

Any of them would. 

_ And yet they chose you.  _

> “Tell me again,” Hamish commanded Jack. “Tell me exactly what she said.”
> 
> “I have more control over my destiny than anyone she’d ever seen,” Jack repeated, arms tight around Alyssa. 
> 
> “Because you’re a werewolf?” 
> 
> “I think so, but I-”
> 
> Gabrielle groaned. “Let’s just sever someone and kill her when she turns around to leave.”
> 
> “Who? Jack? You want to carve a chunk out of flesh out a pregnant woman? Or did you mean Lilith so in the event that this whole thing goes wrong, Marand will be in the possession of a demonic hide. No offense, Lilith.”
> 
> Lilith waved him off. 
> 
> “We don’t know if we can sever you safely because you’re not in love with anyone-” 
> 
> Gabrielle rolled her eyes. 
> 
> “ - and Randall and I can’t because of the bond.”
> 
> Randall grabbed Hamish’s arm to stop him from pacing. “Greybeard ripped his way out way back when. If Lilith shocks me hard enough to stop my heart, maybe -”
> 
> Lilith raises her hand. “I’m down.”
> 
> “Wow,” Randall glared at her, “hurtful, Lil.”
> 
> “Consider it payback for all the times you and Hamish sexiled me.”
> 
> “You bought me lube, made an elaborate bet surrounding our sex life, gifted me -”
> 
> Hamish broke in, “No one is getting severed and no one is killing anyone else.”
> 
> “You know,” Nicole began carefully, “necromancy in and of itself isn’t inherently bad. It’s a very misunderstood discipline of magic with a lot of practical applications.”
> 
> Randall raised his eyebrows at her. “Is that why you got kicked out of your old chapter, or are you really being nice to a Hamishidal psychopath?”
> 
> “I’m just saying, it would be -”
> 
> “She could easily kill all of us and take everything she wants,” Hamish growled. “She can see the past and she’s probably working with Bashmet, she must know something about how the hides work and that we don’t have one to give her, so she knows what she’s asking is impossible. Why go through the trouble?”
> 
> Jack straightened up, eyes bright like a light in his head just went off. “Because she lied.”
> 
> “Exactly!” Hamish smacked his hand on his desk. “Now we just need to know why.”
> 
> “What if she’s not?” Randall asked sharply. “What if she’s just playing us?”
> 
> “She doesn’t have a clue what’s going to happen. And she’s terrified of us,” Hamish went on, either ignoring Randall’s questions or missing them entirely. “There’s no reason to demand we be in anti-transformation chains in a parlay.”
> 
> Jack nodded slowly. “So how do we get her to talk?”
> 
> “We won’t.” He turned to Alyssa. “How did you steal Vera’s power?”
> 
> Alyssa laughed, shaking her head. “You’re crazy.”
> 
> “No, that’s honestly kind of brilliant,” Jack corrected. “Nicole is right, and even if we never use her powers, they’re still safer with us than anyone else.”
> 
> “Nope!” Randall said immediately. “No, nuh-uh, no way! Remember their last magic heist? Remember how that ended?”
> 
> Hamish grabbed Randall’s arm before he could walk away. “We don’t have time to argue about this. The longer we wait, the more chances she has to get a clearer picture of what we’re up to. This will work.”
> 
> “I am not letting you go try to steal magic from someone who wants to kill you,” Randall snapped. “By the way, no one should have that kind of power. Period. Dead things should stay dead, and nothing good ever comes from looking into the future.”
> 
> “We could use it to see what happened to Alex,” Gabrielle pointed out. 
> 
> “And what Bashmet is doing,” Hamish added, grip softening as he went on more gently, “Randall, this is our job. We make sure powerful magic stays in the hands of people who will use it for the right reasons. People who respect it.”
> 
> … shit. 

Honestly, Hamish should be the one stealing Marand’s power. He’s the only one with the time and resources to master necromancy. He’s in the Temple every single day, he knows where to find every single book, scroll, and spell. Jack and Silverback might be the most powerful, but Hamish is the most practiced. The most skilled. He’s been a werewolf the longest. 

Lilith is still finding powers she didn’t know she had, it’s fair that she didn’t want to add one more to her list. 

Gabrielle wants it, Randall saw it in her eyes when they were planning that she desperately wants it, but she wants it too much. 

Alyssa offered, but she’s having a baby. Not a great time to pick up a hobby involving dead people.

Nicole had her fill with necromancy with whatever happened at her last chapter. (Randall has so many questions. So, so many.)

So it came down to Randall or Hamish, and Hamish is so smart. He loves learning new things, unlocking secrets, knowing everything no one else knows. He’s disciplined. Responsible. Painfully aware of his own limits, he won’t take any of this lightly.

But here’s the thing… 

If he’s not healing Hamish or his friends after Knights stuff or waving his hand to lock doors or close the curtains so he doesn’t have to get off the couch or out of bed, Randall doesn’t use magic. Ever. It has to be pretty extreme circumstances for him to start firing off spells. It’s just… not his default. He spent his whole life doing things the human way, and then the werewolf way, and by time he learned to use magic, he already had a big old THE ORDER IS RUINING MY LIFE complex, which somehow makes him the best candidate to steal the necromancer’s power. Well, actually  that makes him the least obvious choice, which makes him the most unpredictable option and therefore the best man for the job - Randall’s head hurts - and everyone voted that it should be him, so Randall said, “Fuck it, I’ll do it,” but he should have stayed. 

He should have stayed with Hamish and Alex and let the others handle it. 

His phone buzzes with an incoming text from Hamish - a photo of a wolfed out Alex, stretched out over the couch with the caption,  _ I was sitting there... _

Randal grins and holds his phone up so the girls can, “AWWW!” over it before he sends back,  _ now ur not _

“How are you ever going to tell him ‘no’ to anything?” Nicole asks.

“I’ll make Hamish do it.”

“Oh please,” she scoffs, “if Hamish spoils him half as much as he spoils you, Alex is going to get away with murder.”

“Don’t we all get away with murder?” Randall points out. 

Gabrielle grins at him. “Does Hamish still write you those little notes?”

Only when he’s out of the house before Randall, which rarely happens anymore… except every Thursday when Randall’s off and he still has to teach. 

“What about flowers?”

Two weeks ago. Rose and peonies. 

Hamish did that trick where every time a petal falls, a new flower blooms - he refuses to tell anyone how he does it - so Randall had flowers every day until this past week. 

Hamish is the first person who ever gave Randall flowers. 

He thinks he’s the first person who ever kissed his hands, too. Hamish has a thing for his hands. Not A Thing, just… he really likes Randall’s hands. He’s always kissing Randall’s hands. Holding them. Pressing them to his face and rubbing his cheek over his palm. If he was in the car now, he’d be holding Randall’s hand. He’d know Randall’s hands are shaking, he’d bring his hand to his lips and promise him, “Everything will be fine.” That’s what he said right before Randall got in the car. 

Or did he say, “We’ll be fine”? 

What… what did he say? 

Randall can’t remember now, he just remembers extracting himself from Alex - “Please don’ go, Randoll,” is the most heartbreaking sentence Randall’s ever heard - and promising him he’d be home before bedtime, and then he kissed Hamish, and Hamish said, “Everything will be fine,” or “We’ll be fine,” and those are two very different things. If Randall’s not there with them, he can’t watch Hamish die, but Randall knows Marand can’t actually see their futures - werewolves’ futures - and he saw  _ Endgame, _ and  _ Men in Black 3, _ and  _ Hot Tub Time Machine _ , and all the  _ Bill and Ted _ movies so he knows the future is complicated and it can change drastically in an instant. So what if this doesn’t work, what if that was the last thing Hamish will ever say to him, and he can’t remember...

Hamish:  _ We should have gotten more laundry detergent earlier :| _

It’s such a ridiculous thing to be worried about at a time like this that Randall can’t help laughing. 

He texts back,  _ ill get some omw back if im not bloody and gross.  _

Hamish:  _ I like you bloody and gross.  _

No one else would, but what Randall sends back is,  _ u like me anyway u can get me _ , winking emoji, kissing emoji, eggplant emoji, tongue emoji, OK that’s enough emojis. 

A call from an unknown number lights up his phone. 

Showtime… 

He turns off the music and gives everyone a second to compose themselves before swiping to answer with, “We’ve got everything, we’re bringing it to you now.”

“That’s not -”

“Your little friends ransacked the Temple, it’s going to take a month to find those chains,” he repeats exactly how Hamish told him. “Hamish and Vera are cleaning up the mess. You can parlay with one of us, or we’ll leave everything on your doorstep.”

“So you have the hide?”

“We have the locker. It takes them a while to go back sometimes. Especially if they’ve been moved.” 

(He has no idea if that’s true, it’s just what Hamish told him to say.) 

“They don’t like being separated from their pack.” 

(Does this sound convincing? Gabrielle is nodding at him, if she approves, this probably sounds good.) 

“How did you get this hide?”

“We severed him.” 

(They didn’t but they’re banking on the fact that she won’t have enough time to slice open her gardener to check. Worst case scenario… Lil is probably still down to electrocute him.) 

“We’re pulling up now,” is the first truthful thing he’s said this entire conversation. 

He hangs up before she can reply - “Keep it short and to the point,” Hamish told him, “do not let her get in your head.” - and finds a new message.

Hamish:  _ When this is all said and done, I’ll show you a few ways I like you best.  _

_ U better _ , he texts back, followed by,  _ just got here, ill call u as soon as were done. I love you and alex a lot. Give him a hug from me _

He turns his phone on silent as Gabrielle pulls up to the biggest, darkest, straight out of a horror movie mansion he’s ever seen. The house might even qualify as a small castle. An estate, how much land does a property have to have to be an estate? He and Hamish own a decent chunk of the woods, is that an estate? Does he own an estate and never realized it? 

He gets out of the car just as Jack parks his truck next to the Tesla and walks around to grab Greybeard’s locker out of the back. 

Alyssa slides out of the truck and takes a deep breath. “Remember the incantation?”

“Yeah. But if I -”

“I’ll be right there if anything goes wrong," she assures him, "but you'll be fine. We all have complete and total faith in you. Worst case scenario, I'm sure Lilith is still willing to try it your way."

Lilith shoots him a grin over her shoulder and, yeah, she totally wants to mostly kill him. Thanks, Lil, never mind that whole going to the demon realm and dragging your scrappy ass back to your girlfriend who loves you so much she was willing to sacrifice herself to get you back. 

A butler - a live butler, Randall thinks, but he might just be freshly dead - opens the door for them and points them towards a large sitting room. Thick, heavy drapes hang from every window they pass, leaving most of the house’s finer details obscured in shadows. Lots of books, though. A piano covered in a layer of dust. 

“Someone never outgrew their emo phase,” Gabrielle mumbles, appraising the decor around them. 

“Or she really likes the Brontes,” Nicole adds. 

Light, careful footsteps from deeper in the house catch his ear. Five-five, slim but the steps have a weight to them that suggests the person they belong to is wearing heavy clothes. A long skirt if the rustling fabric and the quiet swish as it slithers the floor is anything to go by. 

Randall takes a deep breath. 

The steps get louder but barely. Marand moves like a ghost. 

He holds it for four… 

Three… 

The handle on the door squeaks, Greybeard hears it but Randall wouldn’t. Not at a time like this.

Two… 

He drags a claw over the palm of his own hand and squeezes. 

The door opens and Marand’s voice fills the room, “Your plan won’t work.”

One of them will. 

“Your friend here is far too powerful to bring you close enough to death for your hide to free himself without killing you in the process,” she goes on. 

She steps into the room, long, black skirt swishing as she walks up to the table to survey their offerings - the demon book. What’s left of the hides from Pineau’s basement, including the werebear. The sword that’s been in the basement since Randall moved in and he used to cut off demons’ heads. Greybeard’s empty locker. 

Marand’s face remains perfectly still as she asks, “Do you think leaving your husband at home will change the circumstances of his death?”

He takes another breath. Deeper. This time he smells blood and he knows if he were to look at Alyssa’s and hand, he’d find its source. Back up plans. They have lots of back up plans. 

Greybeard decides her threat has gone unanswered long enough and snaps, “Do you think threatening us will change yours?”

Her lips lift in the emptiest smile Randall’s ever seen. 

She draws a breath to reply and he squeezes his fist till he hears blood hit the carpet. 

“ _ Ex hoc fascinatore totae potestates tollantur!” _

Her magic hits him in the center of his chest. Hard. Hard enough to send him stumbling back and knock the air out of him, pins and needles scattering over his skin as it settles in. 

At first he just feels cold. 

Greybeard shudders, so he shudders, shaking off a chill so visceral Randall looks for steam rising from off his skin or forming from his breath. That would explain the hissing he hears, barely hears, but it’s there, rising from under the house, louder outside. 

Marand gapes at him, face going as white as the lace of her shirt. 

And there’s this humming, these… vibrations he feels more than hears until a hand connects with his elbow and it thrums like a baseline. 

  
“Randall?” Jack’s voice is muffled, he sounds so far away, but he’s right there. 

The sound shifts into… a heartbeat...?

“Randall! Hey, buddy, are you OK?”    
  


_ Lub-dub… lub-dub… lub-dub... _

“Did it work?”

Seems like it, but there’s only one real way to find out. 

Randall traces one of the sounds, the fastest one, the one coming from the same direction as the sharp, acrid terror radiating off Marand. He clenches his hand as hard as he can, imagines his hand around her throat, and watches her choke. Her pulse pumps in the back of his skull like a bassline, faster and faster as her hands scramble to her throat, tearing at the force of a grip she can’t peel away. She stares at him the exact same way deer look at Greybeard right before he rips out their throats. 

He opens his hand. 

She drops to her knees, coughing and gasping. 

Oh yeah. 

It worked.

Marand pushes herself to her feet and snaps, “Your hide might be fearless, but you were not made for this kind of power. You’re too soft.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Randall agrees, waving her off. “Lil, Nicole, take the third floor. Jack and Alyssa, take the second. I’ll take this one. Don’t touch anything, call or text if you find something. Gabby, you’ve got prisoner duty.”

Gabrielle smiles sweetly at him as he passes. Or maybe it’s Midnight. It’s hard to tell with those two. 

Randall leaves them to it - whatever ‘it’ is, that depends on how murdery Gabrielle is feeling today - in favor of wandering deeper into the house. To look around, yes, but more importantly to call Hamish. 

The phone barely rings before, “Randall? Did it work?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it… it worked.”

“Are you alright?”

“I think so…? It’s like,” he pushes a door open with his foot, just a closet, “I can hear people’s heartbeats really loud, and there’s this buzzing thing, I don’t know what that is yet. How’s Alex?”

“Cranky.” Randall laughs as Alex yells, “Am not!” over Hamish’s clarification, “He’s tired, but he’s eating now so hopefully he’ll feel better now that he has something other than sugar in his system.”

Probably not, but Randall will let Hamish realize that for himself. He has a more important bone to pick with Hamish, “I think Marand is a vampire.”

“Vampires aren’t real.”

“You say that about everything and we saw zombies earlier, so I don’t believe you.”

“Fair enough,” Hamish chuckles. “Seriously, though, are you OK?”

Randall comes to the end of the hallway and it’s only when he leans against the wall that he realizes how tired he is, how good it feels to stand still even though his body demands he move. His hands are still shaking, apparently that doesn’t count. 

He means to say he’s fine, but that’s not what comes out. “I can’t wait to get home.”

“I’m so sorry. As soon as you left, I wanted to call the whole thing off. I should never -”

“I offered, and everyone agreed,” Randall reminds him. “It’s fine, Hamish, I’m just… tired and glad that it worked, and now I’m ready to come home and see you guys.”

“Us, too,” Hamish murmurs. “Hey, buddy, slow down, there’s plenty more food.”

If he closes his eyes, he can picture Hamish and Alex sitting at the table, Alex shoveling food into his mouth while Hamish pushes food around his plate to look like he’s eating when he’s actually too worried or preoccupied to eat. (There’s a reason Randall used to bring him food all the time and still stocks his desk with snacks.) 

He sighs and admits, “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“It’s a little easier on this end. Baby wolves really keep you on your toes.” He must have poked Alex or something because he cracks up. “When are you guys heading back?”

“We’re clearing the house now. Has Vera decided if she wants Marand dead or alive?”

“Alive is preferable, but don’t worry about the house. Just do the usual traps and wards and come home.”

Hamish doesn’t say it, but Randall hears the ‘please.’ The catch in his breath. 

If Hamish was here, this would be the point where they slip into one of these empty, shadowy rooms and whisper reassurances into the dark. Their fingers would brush as they venture through the house. Hamish’s hand would be quick to grab Randall’s elbow or his shirt to keep him from walking distractedly into a room because he’d be too busy rattling off how everything in this house points toward Marand being a vampire - no sunlight, major goth vibes, he bets all of her shirts are high-necked so people won’t see her bite marks - and he’d get distracted in his theory. He usually does. 

But Hamish isn’t here. And as disorienting as it is, as much as Randall wishes Hamish were here so he could hug him till he can’t breathe - his hands are still shaking, maybe his body is so used to a certain amount of physical contact after an adrenaline rush that he’s going through withdrawal -, knowing he’s at home, he’s safe, he’s with Alex, they’re both OK, finally cuts through the chill seeping into his bones, like someone threw open these curtains and let sunlight flood the room. 

He slides down to the floor and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I was going to try my plan if it didn’t work.”

“I sensed that,” Hamish replies lightly. “And if you’d survived it, I’d kill you myself the second you got home.”

“That’s fair.” He grins at Hamish’s scoff. “I’ll text you once we’re Hamward bound.”

“You have to run out of these at some point.”

“Never.” Randall smiles to himself. “I love you. Tell Alex to save me some dinner.”   
  


“Love you, too, and don’t count on it.”

Randall waits for him to hang up to put his phone back in his pocket and push himself off the floor. 

“Gabby!” he yells as he heads down the hall. “Knock her out and throw her in the trunk, we’re going home,”

Gabrielle growls. “We never get to do anything fun anymore!”

* * *

The second the wall closed on the Pit of Despair with Marand still in her magically-induced slumber on the other side, Randall wolfed out and Greybeard ran the rest of the way home.

Would it have been faster to let someone drive him home?

Maybe. 

Would it have been a lot less jarring given there is so! Much! Life! In the woods and it’s all thrumming so loud it makes Randall’s ears burn and his head spin? 

Absolutely. 

Did the high-pitched, excited howl that answered his make it worth every step?

Damn right, it did.

Everything quiets the closer he gets to the house, like even the grass knows about the wolves who live there and what they do to those who dare disturb their peace - the grass would know, it’s growing in blood-soaked soil - until he only hears two heartbeats, two lifelines he traces onto the porch where Alex is being wrangled into pajamas, laughing at something Hamish said, and maybe these new powers aren’t so bad. Maybe this is Randall’s new favorite sound. Their heartbeats, both of them strong and steady, Hamish’s slower and deeper and quieter than Alex’s, not at all in sync or on the same beat, a messy little symphony just for him. 

The tempo changes when Alex notices him approaching, faster and brighter, and a big grin spreads across Alex’s face right before he launches himself off the porch. 

Randall wraps him up and holds him tight, maybe too tight, but Alex hugs him back just as hard. A loud, strong heartbeat fills his ears, little fingers curl into his shirt, Randall can’t smell the basement on him anymore. He just smells like home. Home and cinnamon and milk and vanilla and honey, did Hamish make him a mini-mocktail? Randall leaves for a day and Hamish is he already teaching Alex the ins and outs of mixology? Will he come home tomorrow from work and find him in a vest and button-down with a shaker full of limeade? If he turns into a mini-Hamish, Randall will die. Just… die. On the spot. One Hamish is too much, two Hamishes will be nothing but chaos. Wonderful, beautiful chaos. 

Alex’s hair is damp, he’s definitely had a bath, is he cold? It’s warm, sure, but there’s a breeze, he might get cold with wet hair so Randall pulls his hide over his head and holds him tighter against him.

Hamish’s heartbeat gets louder, faster, Randall feels it like its his own blood pounding in his ears and his own heart hammering against his chest as hands cup his jaw, the touch so tender it makes Randall’s bones ache. 

He butts his head against Hamish’s. “Why does he smell like Rumchata?”

“Because I made him a riff of horchata, which is essentially Rumchata without the rum and dairy.”

“That is,” Randall presses his smile to Hamish’s lips, “so fu-udging cute, Hambone.”

Hamish laughs, breath warm and sweet over Randall’s mouth. “You like that one.”

“I like you.”

“Are you kissing?” Alex asks loudly. 

Right. 

Yes. 

There is a tiny human in their midst. Well, small human. Little werewolf. Baby wolf. Right there. 

“We were,” Hamish replies with a smirk, “and now that Randall is home, it’s time for bed.”

“But I not tired,” Alex whines and goes completely limp in Randall’s arms. 

“We have a busy day tomorrow, remember?” Hamish mouths over Alex’s head, “He is  _ sooo _ tired.”

Randall grins at him and says to Alex, “How about we go hang out in your room for a while?”

“Fine,” he huffs. “But I not sleepy.”

“Right.”

“I not.”

“I believe you,” Randall says seriously but he shakes his head at Hamish as he carries Alex iside and up to his room.

“I jus’ need a little rest.”

“Of course. Just a little one.” He slides Alex off his shoulder and drops him onto his bed amongst his stuffed animals. “Want to read a story?”

“No, let’s just rest.”

“Sounds good,” Randall agrees and flops down onto the bed. He deliberately leans back over Alex and complains, “Man, these pillows are lumpy…”

“Randoll!” Alex pokes him repeatedly. “You heavy!”

“Oh, hey, Alex.” He sits up and lets Alex crawl out from behind him. “Why didn’t you say you were back there?”

Alex glares up at him with all the ferocity of a duckling. 

He draws a breath to no doubt accuse Randall of trying to squish his own baby wolf but it turns into a yawn. A big yawn, accompanied by a big stretch, followed by an exhausted flop but no way was this kid tired. Nope. He is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and raring to go. 

Randall pulls the blankets up to Alex’s chest and drapes his hide over him. “Comfy?”

He nods, rubbing his eyes as he plops onto his back to stare up at Randall. “I not sleepy.”

“Not even a little bit?” Hamish asks as he sits down on the bed. 

“No,” Alex insists around another yawn and nestles deeper under the blanket. “I just taking a break.”

“You had a long day,” Randall says softly, running his hand through Alex’s hair. “It got pretty weird for a minute, but tomorrow will be better. Right?”

Alex nods. “I like it here.”

“We like having you here,” Hamish murmurs, smiling down at him. “Close your eyes. They look tired.” 

Alex giggles, but he closes his eyes and tilts his head towards Randall’s hand as he makes another pass through his hair. It’s hard not to think about how Hamish does the same thing. Hamish’s hair is finer, silkier than Alex’s. Shorter, too. Alex’s will probably get redder in the sunlight while Hamish’s gets blonder. Summer is winding down, but there’s plenty of time to test his theory. Lots of daylight left for playing tag and climbing trees and racing and wolfing out. Picnics on the porch. Roasting marshmallows and making smores in the firepit. They can even get a tent and camp out in the front yard.

Alex snuffles and rolls onto his side, dislodging Randall’s hand from his hair as he curls around his stuffed wolf and clutches his bear to his chest. 

Randall drops a light kiss to his head, smiling when Alex snuffles contentedly, and Hamish leans around him to whisper, “Sweet dreams, baby wolf,” as he brushes his hand over Alex’s cheek. 

They stand at the same time and linger per an unspoken agreement that they’d give it a few minutes to make sure Alex doesn’t wake up. That he doesn’t need a drink, or that he’s too hot or cold, that he’s scared to sleep by himself - he seemed pretty set on them all crashing in here together earlier, maybe Hamish talked to him about it while Randall was out stealing stuff with their friends - but he sleeps on peacefully. 

Randall pulls the door halfway closed behind them and turns on the hallway light. And the bathroom light, in case Alex has to use it at some point tonight. And the light at the bottom of the stairs because he’s not sure how late he and Hamish will stay up and there’s a pretty solid chance Alex will have a nightmare or just not sleep through the night so he might come looking for them if they’re not in their room and they don’t hear him get up. 

He peeks into Alex’s room one more time to make sure it’s not too bright or too dark, but Alex is, for the time being, down for the count. Which is what Randall will hopefully be in the next two hours, but first he needs to brush his teeth and he could use a shower but that’s just going to have to wait until this morning. He’s so fucking tired. Why isn’t there a spell to replace basic dental hygiene? Why couldn’t he steal a magic dentist’s powers? 

Hamish slips behind him, sliding his arms under Randall’s and wrapping them around his stomach to pull him into a bone-melting embrace that soothes his frayed nerves. The exhaustion, the emotional roller coaster he’s been riding the past two days finally hits him. Getting everything he ever wanted, fighting to keep it, and now he does, so why are his hands still shaking? 

Hamish’s lips brush over the back of his neck as he murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” 

“For accusing you of putting the Knights first yesterday and then demanding you do exactly that today.” 

“For the bazillionth time, Hamish, I volunteered,” Randall groans, covering Hamish’s hands with his. “I was going to apologize, too, now that I have more perspective, so maybe we just agree it’s going to suck no matter what and stop being sorry about it. Deal?”

“Deal,” Hamish agrees and plants a single kiss to the top of Randall’s spine. “So, I made you a few promises earlier -”

“Nope, too tired. You can fuck me in the morning.”

Hamish sags against him. “Thank god…”


	8. In which there is fluffy filler, morning sex, and Gabrielle makes a cocktail just for Randall...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> Hope you're all doing well and staying safe and surrounding yourselves with people who think you're awesome!
> 
> This is mostly domestic fluff, a smidge of plot happens at the end, and a smidge of smut starts us off. If you want to skip it, stop reading at the word, "Safe" and pick it back up when Randall complains about his Monday.

Normally when Randall’s alarm goes off, he slumps out of bed, brushes his teeth, gets dressed for the gym, grabs his stuff, gives Hamish a kiss - usually his forehead since he’s still asleep -, and off he goes to start his day. Gym, clinic, home. 

Today when Randall’s alarm goes off, he hits ‘snooze’ and prays for a small, casualty-free disaster to take out the wing of the hospital where his office is located. Or just his office. Maybe a small asteroid can smash through his window or something. If it wasn’t so early, he’d text Lilith and ask her if that’s something she or Timber can do now. 

Hamish’s foot connects with his shin. “Hey.”

No. 

He doesn’t care how annoyed Hamish gets when he hits ‘snooze’ over and over instead of turning his alarm off setting a timer or changing the time on his alarm - no one does that, Hamish, seriously -, Randall is tired. He will hit ‘snooze’ as many times as he damn well wants. 

All of which he eloquently explains in great detail without opening his eyes or moving anymore whatsoever in a single syllable, “Wuh?” 

Hamish’s answering chuckle is too hoarse for Randall to tell if he’s amused or annoyed. The bed shifts and it feels like Hamish is reaching over him for something. Probably his phone so he can change his alarm or whatever. Randall doesn’t care. Randall is going back to sleep for seven minutes. And then another seven minutes. And possibly another. And, OK, maybe Hamish has a point about changing the alarm. (No one tell him Randall admitted that.)

He peels one eye open to watch as Hamish resets his alarm and tosses it aside. “Why do you always throw my phone around?”

“I do not.”

“You do,” he mumbles, rolling towards Hamish to bury his face in his chest. 

“Do not,” Hamish argues in a whisper, but he drags his nails lightly down Randall’s back as he says it and it feels so good Randall almost forgives him for being annoying. He at least considers it, until Hamish digs himself a little deeper and adds, “But if I did, I would never actually break it.”

Randall would roll his eyes but that would require opening them. He  _ should _ open them so he can start the long, torturous process of waking up since this is his only window to work out or at least go for a run. They have to get groceries later, someone has to interrogate Marand, Vera is probably dying to give him a nice, long lecture on his new powers and throw a copy of  _ The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Necromancy _ at him. Geez, if there was ever a day to take off of work, today would be it. Unfortunately, he’s got a full day of patients - a full week of patients, it’s insane - and none of this stuff can wait till Thursday when he’s hypothetically off. He has a strong suspicion he’s going to be asked to come in anyway and he can take two days off next week or something. 

If there’s an upside to any of this, he will probably be too busy to talk to his parents today. Granted he’s not planning on telling them anything beyond, “Hey, you’re grandparents now.” The rest of it is definitely an in-person conversation.

He rubs his eyes and mutters to Hamish, “What would I have to do to get you to pretend to be me for a day?”

“Ask.”

“Hamish. Baby. Darling. Love of my life. Will you turn into me for a day so I can sleep in and play with Alex instead of dealing with sick people who never listen to me anyway?”

“Sure, but that means  _ you _ get to be  _ me _ and you have to clean up the Temple.”

Ugh, no thanks. Besides, if the problem can’t be solved by drinking more water, eating vegetables, or stretching, Hamish’s response is usually a shrug and, “It probably won’t kill you,” and while that is generally true, every now and then it actually can kill you. So that plan is a bust. Although, “What do you think is the worst thing that could happen if I ran the Temple for the day?

“Considering that as of six o’clock yesterday, you are one of the most powerful and terrifying Practitioners in the western hemisphere and you’d have a tiny werewolf tagging along with you,” Hamish pauses to consider all of this, “a lot.”

“OK, first of all,” Randall holds up a finger, “no one knows I have those powers. Second,” he lifts another, “I don’t even know how to use them, and third,” he waves all three fingers in the general direction of Hamish’s face, “Alex and I would just watch movies on your coach and when that gets boring, we’d bail.”

Hamish bites at his fingers. “I can’t argue with one and three, but as far as how the magic works, we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“Yeah, we do,” Randall concedes, smiling to himself. “So, how’s it feel being married to the ‘most powerful and terrifying Practitioner in the western hemisphere?’”

“Safe.” 

Randall looks up at Hamish, icy blue eyes staring back at him intently, not even a trace of smirk or smile pulling at warm, soft lips Randall traces with his finger. Just to check. Just to be sure this is all still real. He touches his lips to them, buries a sigh against them, takes it back as a soft breath falls from Hamish’s lips. 

He strokes over Hamish’s scar, barely brushes his finger over it, and the nails on his back go sharp, points barely making contact with his skin as they trail down his spine. It still makes his skin burn. The implication of the claws coming out at all is enough to set Randall’s blood on fire. To make him blush. To make his stomach swoop. To make his hips cant towards Hamish in search of friction, contact, something, anything. What he actually gets is Hamish’s hand snaking down the front of his pants and closing around him. Not moving, just holding him in a tight, calloused grip that makes stars dance behind Randall’s eyes when he rocks into it. 

He tugs Hamish’s shorts down and returns the favor, presses his thumb to his slit and twists his hand on the upstroke how he knows Hamish likes. Hamish draws in a sharp breath, his pulse kicks up a notch, his lifeline blares in Randall’s ears - a bow held to a string, one long, quivering note being stretched on and on and on. 

And apparently this is a game now because Hamish does it back to Randall and adds a fondle to his balls that makes his whole body arch and his brain turn to molasses. 

He lets out a long, low moan, barely muffled against Hamish’s mouth, and repeats the whole sequence, tacking on a squeeze after the fondle. It’s more for lack of brain power at this point than creativity. All of Randall’s focus is on kissing Hamish, licking into his mouth and biting his lip. Smiling when Hamish does that back, too. Gasping out his name when instead of adding a new move, he pushes him onto his back and slides over him. He takes them both in hand and fucking  _ fuck _ , he feels Hamish’s pulse everywhere, throbbing against his dick, pounding through his chest, hammering under his fingertips as he tips Randall’s chin up to mouth at his throat. 

If this is a game, if they’re still playing, Randall should do it back, he should snake a hand into Hamish’s hair and scrape his teeth over Hamish’s scar to make his hips stutter and his grip tighter. Maybe Hamish will bite him back, kiss him harder, maybe he’ll rut against him harder - he’s close, he’s right there, he wants to come  _ so _ bad -, his heart will beat harder. Hamish’s heartbeat is quickly becoming his new favorite sound, even better than the “Fuck, baby…” that he pants out against Randall’s scar, sending a shiver through him when his warm breath hits his sweating skin. 

He shivers again at the feeling of teeth grazing his skin and keens, “Harder.”

Hamish’s eyes flick up to meet his, gaze dark, heavy with a feral kind of hunger that makes Randall whimper under its intensity, as he sinks his teeth into the muscle of his chest. Hard. Almost as hard as his hips snap, the movement dragging his dick over Randall’s and Hamish better kiss him, now, right now, or he’s going to get really loud, so he snakes a hand into Hamish’s hair and pulls him into a kiss that’s all tongue and teeth as the motions of their bodies turn frantic, urgent, close, so  _ fucking _ close, until everything whites out. He hears Hamish’s ragged breaths and his heart racing, feels the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the pulse of his dick as he comes, but his lifeline goes hollow. Not silent, just… it’s like an echo. The ghost of a sound. A slow, quiet hum that gets steadily louder as he registers soft, whisper-light brushes of lips over his collarbones. 

He probably lost the game when he asked Hamish to bite him harder, but he wraps his arms around him and returns the kisses anyway, pressing his lips to Hamish’s temple and the side of his face. 

Hamish must realize what he’s doing because he huffs out a laugh and sits up on his elbows to loom over Randall. Well, not exactly ‘loom,’ he’s smiling and ‘looming’ implies a certain degree of menacing that Hamish just isn’t at this point in time. Other times, sure, but now he’s just kind of hovering over Randall attentively. Fondly. 

Randall reaches up to stroke his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he whispers back, and Randall knows, he just  _ knows _ Hamish is going to turn his head to kiss his palm as it passes over his face, but it doesn’t make it any less endearing when he does it. 

Maybe Randall won the game after all. 

* * *

Powerful and terrifying or not, today kicked Randall’s ass. Mondays are always rough, but this particular Monday?  This is one for the books. 

Randall was not prepared. 

Let’s start with his first patient of the day. Nineteen year old with an STD who kept trying to say it wasn’t an STD, it was an allergic reaction to soap. Right. Sure, pal. Randall doesn’t care, he’s not here to judge, but it’s an STD. Then the guy broke down crying because his dick was going to fall off and his girlfriend would find out he cheated on her and can he maybe get some medicine for her, too, because she might have it now and was this in Randall’s job description? Was it covered in med school and he just forgot about it? No? Great. Cue the awkward shoulder pats and half-hearted pep talk on learning from bad choices and trying to do better in the future. 

In a surprise twist, his next patient turned out to be the girlfriend, who unfortunately ran into the boyfriend in the lobby. She was understandably upset and embarrassed and Randall let her cry it out in his office.

Then it was a woman who insisted she didn’t have any pre-existing conditions despite being very clear that she has an inhaler for her asthma. Go ahead, let that one sink in, Randall will wait. 

As if neither of those were weird enough, he also saw an infected fingernail on a guy who thought he could heal it with essential oils. Spoiler alert, he couldn’t! The nail fell off the second Randall blinked at it, and the guy fainted on him. 

And then Randall saw three separate cases of runny nose, sore throat, cough, low-grade fevers. Then it was two cases of swimmer’s ear - tis the damn season -, and a two year old with a rash probably related to a food allergy who, within a very short timeframe, went from his giggliest patient to the sleepiest. She was also the high-point of his day so far because while he was checking her stomach, she grabbed his hand and full-body hugged his arm, and why are kids so freaking cute?

Speaking of freaking cute, the photos blowing up his phone all day of Alex scowling at his coloring book with the exact! Same! Expression! as Hamish as he scowls at some gigantic scroll thingy are the only things getting him through his day. Besides coffee and gummy bears and overall giddiness. Ding-dong, the witch is dead - OK, she’s not, but she will be soon -, he got laid this morning, his kid is adorable, all that jazz. 

When Randall finally,  _ finally _ gets home, he finds an unlocked, quiet house with random toys strewn about the living room plus a fully stocked fridge and cabinets, some kind of pork tenderloin and roasted vegetable situation in the oven, but no Hamish or Alex, so maybe they went for a walk in the woods or they’re playing outside somewhere. 

Or maybe Tundra is chasing Alex, hide clasped around his neck with a chip clip and billowing in the wind as he runs, scream-laughing and grinning as he dives behind Randall, who has so many questions, but the second he opens his mouth to ask, Tundra pokes him in the cheek with a wet muzzle.   
  


“What are you - stop it, I’m -”

“He wants Graybird to play with us,” Alex translates breathlessly from behind his legs, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Please, Graybird, play with us?”

Tundra huffs in what can only be agreement and pokes Randall harder. And now Alex is poking his shin, too, giggling at whatever Tundra is somehow communicating to him.

“OK, OK, stop poking me!” Randall laughs. 

He only makes it three steps off the porch before ‘Graybird’ decides he’s moving too slow and they should be playing, too. This from walking murder spell who rips off people’s faces and eats their hearts, why the hell is Randall worried what his parents will think of them?

Greybeard rumbles out a low growl in Tundra and Alex’s direction, prompting Alex to let go from where he was dangling off Tundra’s arm to full-speed at Greybeard and there’s a split second where Randall would like to strongly remind Greybeard that while Alex is a werewolf, right now he is just a little boy who with very tearable skin and very breakable bones and please be careful with his new son. He just got him and wants to keep him for a very long time, preferably forever, but when Greybeard looks at Alex, it’s… it’s nothing but fierce affection, glancing toward the trees for signs of danger and sniffing the air for impending storms because a pup can catch a cold and, oh my god, Greybeard is in hardcore dad-mode. Has he done this before?

Alex crashes into Greybeard’s legs with an ‘Oof!’ and he’d bounce backwards onto the ground if it wasn’t for Greybeard snagging a clawed finger in the collar of his shirt and huffs chidingly at him to be more careful.

Dude, Greybeard, what’s the story here? 

Why hasn’t he told Randall about any of this, he thought they were bros, and why isn’t Greybeard answering him?!?

Alex grins up at him and squeals, “Chase me!” and Greybeard shakes off Randall’s nagging - uh, not nagging, these are all perfectly fair questions - and does just that. He chases Alex all the way into the woods, through bushes and trees and over dried up creek beds without letting him get even a step out of reach. 

Tundra cuts them off and Alex shrieks, skidding to a halt and spinning around to duck under Greybeard. He fixes Greybeard a flat look that Randall recognizes immediately from his own parents - “I’ve been doing this all day, I am exhausted, he is your son from now until bathtime,” apparently ‘your turn’ is universal across all species - and snaps at him to go after the pup already, they have  _ definitely  _ done this before. 

Greybeard, what the hell? Why didn't he tell Randall that he and Tundra have parenting experience?!?

Greybeard continues to ignore him in favor of standing very, very still so Alex can dangle from his arm, no matter how hard Randall mentally pesters him to spill the damn beans.

The game shifts from chase to climbing to wrestling after Alex wolfs out - it’s more of Greybeard rolling Alex around on the ground and nosing at him while Alex chews on his ears and pulls on his beard - until Hamish yells, “Dinner’s ready!” 

Randall calls Greybeard back and tosses a now human Alex over his shoulder, holding a hand out for Hamish to throw him his robe as he asks, “Did you have fun today?”

“Yepp,” Alex chirps, poking at Randall’s shoulder blade. “We went to the store and I got dino nuggets, and ice creams, and potatoes, and, um… cereal!”

“We got a lot of things besides that,” Hamish clarifies, untangling Alex from Randall so he can get semi-dressed. “How was your day?”

“Busy.” He gives Hamish a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. “How’d you manage to get groceries  _ and _ make dinner before I got home?”

“We left around three when Lilith and Jack showed up to have a little chat with Marand. I looked for some things to help us with your new project, but I kept getting sidetracked because  _ somebody _ ,” he jostles Alex, “was looking through the books and leaving them all over the place instead of putting them back for me.”

Alex flashes an impish grin. “Oops.”

“Yeah, ‘oops’ is right,” Hamish laughs, shaking his head. “Anyway, everyone will probably come by tonight once Alex goes to bed to debrief.”

“I wanna see everyone!”

“You saw Jack and Lilith earlier.”

“But I wanna see dem again,” he whines. 

“We’ll see,” Hamish replies in a noncommittal tone that gives Randall flashbacks to literally every time he asked his parents for something as a kid, because of course Hamish would master it right away, but it still makes Randall trip over his own feet as he follows them inside. 

Hamish sets Alex down in front of a tiny human sized portion of cut up meat and vegetables, plus a glass of what might be apple juice, and kisses the top of his head before taking his own usual spot at the table. 

Alex spears a bite and holds it up to show Randall, “It’s a purple potato!”

“Does it taste purple?” Randall asks as he sits down. 

“I dunno,” Alex admits and takes a bite, humming as he chews before announcing, “it does!”

Randall considers asking for clarification on what purple tastes like, but he also really wants Alex to eat most of his dinner. Probably better not to get him too wound up, he can do that after he eats. Plus he has his own purple potatoes to try, and … they just taste like potatoes. Which are good, don’t get him wrong, potatoes are the best, but when you eat something purple, you expect something a little… spicier, maybe? Come to think of it, the only naturally purple foods he’s ever eaten are grapes - sweet -, eggplant - breaded, fried, covered in cheese and marinara, so he has no idea what it actually tastes like under all of that -, and berries - tart, sour, also sweet -, so maybe he shouldn’t have expected much. 

He must look as underwhelmed as he feels because he catches Hamish snickering at him and nearly throws a piece of potato at him, but Randall is a parent now and he has to demonstrate proper table manners. No throwing food at Hamish. Even though Hamish is the worst. He loves him, but he is the worst and deserves to have potatoes thrown at him. 

He can kick him under the table, though - even if Alex picks up on that and tries to repeat it, his legs are too short -, except Hamish hooks his foot around Randall’s ankle and raises his eyebrows in a very, “Try it, I dare you,” way. Normally Randall would, but, again, there is a baby wolf in their presence and it would be very disrupting to drag Hamish under the table and roll around on the floor until one of them gives. Plus they’d probably wind up making out. And dinner would get cold, and Randall is genuinely starving because he had a protein shake this morning and at lunch he wolfed down - ha, werewolf pun - some leftovers from last night and shotgunned a bottle of water, and that’s the only nutritional sustenance he’s had all day. It’s a wonder Greybeard didn’t possess him and rip open the vending machine. Maybe that’s why he was ignoring Randall earlier… 

He does give Hamish’s shin one more poke with his toe and asks, “How was your day?”

“Good,” he says easily. “I have to go to the Sons of Prometheus’s compound on Thursday after my lectures to restock some things that were destroyed. Do you want to bring Alex along or stay home with him?”

“Probably stay, unless he really wants to go for some reason,” Randall mumbles and stuffs some food into his mouth. “Mmm, Hamish, dish ish reary good!”

Alex pats his hand. “Don’ talk wiff your mouf full, Randoll. It not polite.”

Randall really wants to throw something at Hamish now that he has that smug look on his face, but, fine, chew, chew, chew, swallow, “You’re right, Alex. Hamish, this is really good, thanks for making dinner.”

“You’re welcome,” Hamish replies politely, but that self-satisfied grin is still plastered to his face. “Mind doing the dishes later?”

“Not at all, beautiful.”

Hamish’s grin softens just long enough for Randall to catch it before he glances at Alex. “He was really good today.”

Alex beams up at him. “I cute.”

“You are,” Randall laughs, swiping a hand over his face. “My parents are going to lose it when they see how cute you are.”

Instead of looking excited or curious, Alex’s smile dims as he tilts his head. “Your mommy and daddy?”

“Mhmm.”

“Are dey nice?”

“They’re very nice,” Hamish answers. “Randall’s mom gives really big hugs, and his dad makes jokes worse than Randall’s, but they’re pretty funny.”

Randall is hilarious and his dad is amusing at best, but more importantly, “It’s OK if you’re nervous about meeting them, but they’re going to love you.”

Alex looks down at his plate. “Do I gotta leave if dey don’t like me?”

“No,” Randall says immediately. “You are stuck with me and Hamish forever, no matter what.” 

He doesn’t laugh like Randall hoped he would. He just picks at a green bean and shrugs without looking up, and there is only one way to fix this. Randall just has to prove it to him that his parents are, honest to god, the least scary, most non-threatening people who will ever be in his life, and even if they might not be able get past the bad things Randall has done, Alex is just a kid. He’s never hurt anyone except Bashmet, and you’re allowed to bite people who kidnap you, it’s basic self defense. He was just scared and alone, and Randall doesn’t ever want him to be scared and alone again, so his parents have to love him. Alex deserves to have so many people who love him. Randall can accept his parents needing time to adjust to the news that Randall is a werewolf, that’s OK. It’s a lot, and he doesn’t have to tell them that now. But if they see Alex now, if they get to know him a little bit before the big reveal and they’ll see how sweet he is, they won’t hold it against him. 

Randall pulls up his dad’s name in his phone, hits ‘Facetime’ and after two rings, his dad’s face appears on the phone as he cheerfully announces, “City Morgue, you stab ‘em, we slab ‘em!” and is that super appropriate or super cringey given everything that’s happened the past few days? Randall can’t decide. 

His mom pops up over his shoulder and grins at him. “Hi, sweetie, how are you?”

“Good! I’m, uh, good, really good. Just busy and stuff.” He glances at Alex, hiding under Hamish’s arm, and back at the screen. “So, I have big news, and I need you both to be cool and wait until I’m done explaining everything before you start asking a million questions.”

His mom’s eyes instantly glisten as she makes a quiet, “Oh!” and she grabs his dad’s arm, he’s grinning harder than Randall’s ever seen, so they know. Randall doesn’t know how they know, but he  _ knows _ they know, and now his mom is fanning her eyes. Not helpful, Mom, Randall has already experienced so many new and overpowering emotions since bringing Alex home, one of them needs to keep it together. She is the mom, he is… well, shit, he’s a dad, he has to keep it together, too. Damnit, this is hard. 

OK, focus, Carpio-Duke, you’ve got a baby wolf and a couple of olds in varying levels of emotional distress, and your husband is nodding at you to keep going. Always listen to the husband, he is smarter than you.

“Hamish and I…” 

Oh how to explain what he and Hamish have done… 

Ales peeks up at him and Randall gives him a small smile as he explains, “Hamish and I adopted a little boy. His name is Alex, he is almost four years old. He’s had it pretty rough, but he is… really, really great, you guys. He likes cheese, and he runs really fast, and he’s a terrible secretary and a bed hog,” Alex giggles at that, “and we’re pretty crazy about him. Right, Hamish?”

“Right,” he agrees, smiling down at Alex. 

Randall turns back to his phone screen and he has to clear his throat because his mom is full-on crying now and his dad’s eyes are watering. “He’s shy, but he’s listening if you guys want to say hi to him.”

“Oh my god,” his mom laughs, wiping her eyes. “Hi, Alex!”

“Hi, kiddo!” his dad adds. “I like cheese, too, and Maria is a bed hog, just like you.”

She swats his arm and says, “That is  _ not _ true, Alex. Joe is a big joker.”

Randall exaggerates an eyeroll for Alex, who’s mostly out of hiding at this point, and goes on, “He went to work and the store with Hamish today.”

“Aww, I’ll bet that was a lot of fun,” his mom replies. 

Hamish gets this dazed look on his face like the experience was more like stumbling into a warzone than getting groceries. “We spent ten minutes trying to decide what kind of ice cream to get and still wound up getting three of basically the same thing.”

“Dey’re different!” Alex insists. “One’s got cookie  _ dough _ , one is cookies and  _ cream _ , and one has cookie dough  _ and _ brownies.”

Hamish mouths to Randall, “Ten. Minutes.”

And yet, they still walked out with three different ice creams. Clearly Alex has already mastered the art of persuasion if he can pull off that kind of feat against Hamish. This one is powerful. Randall must proceed with caution.

“What’s your favorite kind of cookie, Alex?” his mom asks in a gentle voice.

Alex mumbles, “Chocolate chip.”

“Those are my favorite, too. Do you like… peanut butter chocolate chip, too?”

“Uh-huh,” Alex replies, brightening up a little.

“What about oatmeal chocolate chip?”

“Yeah, but not raisins,” Alex adds, sliding a little closer to Randall and the phone. “Dey gross.”

“They’re imposters,” Randall’s dad agrees solemnly. “Masquerading as chocolate chips but in reality, they’re just wrinkly little nuggets of lies.”

OK, that’s a bit much, but Alex laughs and crawls onto Randall’s lap to look at the phone with him and continue the discussion further. Randall’s parents practically vibrate in their attempt to be chill, which must be a real challenge for them because they have no chill and Alex is too cute for this world. 

Also, he has great hair and Randall does not miss the way his mom’s fingers twitch with excitement to get her hands on him. 

“I like cookies with icing, too,” Alex tells them, resting his hands on Randall’s arm when he wraps it around his stomach. “And one time I had a red cookie and it had, um, white chocolate in it, and it was good.”

“That does sound good!”

“Have you ever had a s’more?”

He shakes his head and listens attentively as Randall’s dad explains the process, which gets Alex all kinds of intrigued because it brings up the topic of fire and camping, which leads to Alex telling them all about the woods and the leaves and rocks he found, and Randall looks over at Hamish, laughing quietly at Alex’s enthusiasm for rocks of all things, and he can’t believe this is his life. He has this sweet, snuggly, opinionated little ball of fluff and wonder in his lap, the most stunning, intelligent, romantic man on the planet sitting next to him, how is this real?

Hamish moves his chair closer and sets Alex’s plate in front of him. “Finish this up while you talk.”

“Ohh, that looks good!” Randall’s dad notes. “Can I try a bite?”

There is no way Alex will find that -

Alex laughs. “You can’t eat it, you on da phone!”

\- you know, Alex thinks everything is funny, Randall probably should have seen that coming.

The rest of dinner is spent with Alex detailing every single moment of his day with several interventions from Hamish when he gets a little too close to revealing way, way too much information about the Order, the Knights, and werewolves in general while reminding Alex to eat, drink, and breathe because,  _ man _ , this kid can ramble. 

He’s right to the part of his grocery trip with Hamish where he had to convince him to buy dino nuggets instead of normal chicken nuggets when Randall whispers to Hamish, “How early in the shopping trip was this?”

“It’s just the ice cream after this,” he sighs. “How has he not lost his voice?”

Randall has no idea. 

“And I said, ‘Please, can I have dino nuggets, Haymitch? I eat dem all, I promise. Even the steggysores,’ and Haymitch said, ‘OK, Alex,’ and put dem in the cart, and den we -”

Hang on, Randall has a question, “Do the stegosauruses taste different?”

“Dey’re not as cool as T-rex. But I will eat dem with ketchup, cause the T-rex eated him and dat’s his blood.”

Aww, Alex is so imaginative and vicious, no wonder Hamish caved. 

“And den we got ice cream, and I could not decide, so Haymitch said we could get all three.”

Hamish cuts in, “And then we came home, made dinner, went outside to play, Randall came home and played, and now we’re eating dinner with you guys.”

“And very soon it will be time to eat some ice cream before taking a bath and calling it a night,” Randall adds, “so I think it’s time to let my mom and dad do  _ their _ dishes and stuff.”

“Aww,” Alex whines, “but I like dem.”

“I know, but you really need a bath, Alex. You stink.”

“Nuh-uh! You stink!”   
  
“That’s all you, dude.”

“It’s you!”

Hamish sighs and says to Randall’s parents, “In complete and total honesty, they both smell pretty bad.”

“You love us,” Randall reminds him. “And Alex stinks worse.”

“You are da stinkiest!” Alex shrieks, laughing so hard he’d fall off Randall’s lap if he wasn’t holding onto him. 

Randall shakes his head firmly and if this kid laughs any harder, every glass in the house will shatter. It’s only a problem because that’s a lot of glass and broken glass is not good for baby wolf feet or paws. Although Randall can just carry him everywhere, so really, how is any of this a problem? 

Alex grabs Randall’s face and smooshes his cheeks. “I not stinky.”

“Fine, you’re not stinky.” Randall grabs his face, too, but without the squish factor. “Ready to go get some ice cream?”

“Uh-huh.” He swivels around and waves at the phone. “Bye! You come over ‘morrow and have cookies wiff me?”

“Sorry, buddy, they can’t come over tomorrow because they live far away,” Randall explains. “Maybe they can come visit us soon.”

His mom interjects, “We could head your way this Saturday after my last appointment and stay through Tuesday, if that works for you guys.”

Oh, wow, that is soon. Too soon. Randall isn’t ready for that whole, “Hey, sidenote, we’re werewolves, we do magic, and I can theoretically raise people from the dead now, here’s your grandson, he’s a werewolf, too, isn’t he great?” talk. But this is the last big hurdle for them. It’s smooth sailing from here on out. He just has to get through this next part and after this, it’s just the three of them living their best lives as a family.

Hamish’s arm slips around his shoulders as he whispers into his ear, “The worst thing that will happen is Alex will be heartbroken when they leave.”

It’s not even close to the worst thing that can happen, but he wants Alex to have his parents in his life as much as he wanted them in Hamish’s life, and his friends’ lives. Whatever they think of Randall when it’s said and done, when they hear everything the Knights+2 and Alex have been through, maybe they’ll come around a little faster to them. 

“Yeah,” he forces himself to say. “Yeah, I, uh, I have to work on Saturday but I should be home around one-ish. Hamish will be here, obviously, so just… let us know and stuff.”

“And when you get here, we can have cookies,” Alex suggests.

His mom laughs. “I will bring you  _ so _ many cookies, sweet boy. And you two, send us a list of stuff he still needs.”

Why? She’s just going to buy every toy and article of clothing in a thirty mile radius, what does she need a list for? But he knows better than to argue with her about it, so Randall just says, “I’ll send you his sizes and everything he has so far.”

She sighs and smiles at Alex. “How are you so cute?”

“Umm. So I don’t get eaten in da wild.”

That is so not how that works - Greybeard has eaten more adorable woodland creatures that Randall ever wants to think about -, but it’s an interesting theory. Randall gives him points for creativity. 

Hamish shakes his head, chuckling. “Good night, guys.”

“Good night, boys, we love you, and it was so nice to meet you, Alex!”

“Enjoy your ice cream!”

“Bye, love you,” Randall says as he ends the call.

The second the screen goes back to the photo of him and Hamish on their wedding day, staring into each other’s eyes, trying - and failing - not to smile like idiots, he gets a strong urge to re-introduce his forehead to the kitchen table. And to change his background to a photo of the three of them as soon as they take one. Although he really does like that photo of him and Hamish. They have so many great photos from their wedding. They looked hot. They were a fixture on the photographer’s and the venue’s social media marketing pages for a long time. Actually, he thinks they’re still the first photo you see when you go to the photographer’s website. Should they be getting royalties off that or something?

Hamish drops his head onto Randall’s shoulder. “If you look just a tiny bit more pitiful, I might do the dishes for you.”

  
“Nope. Go relax with baby wolf. I’ll get his ice cream, do the dishes, and start his bath” Randall insists and kisses his hair. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Hamish replies. He sits up and grabs Alex. “Want to watch  _ Paw Patrol _ ?”

“Yes!” Alex cheers.

Once Randall gets Hamish and Alex situated on the couch with a big bowl of ice cream - he grabs a decent portion of each different-but-not flavor and grins at Hamish’s eye roll as Alex launches into, “See, Haymitch? Dey different!” - and two spoons, he packs up the leftovers from dinner, shoves them in the first open spot in the fridge he finds - those two went a little crazy at the store, maybe Randall should handle grocery runs from now on -, and gets the dishes squared away. 

There’s no update from Lilith, Jack, or anyone else on his or Hamish’s phones, so he gives it two episodes before he goes upstairs to run a bath, add some bubbles, line up those washable paint marker thingies on the edge of the tub, OK, hang on, he needs to try these out. There’s no way, holy shit, they work! He can still see a bit of a line where he wiped his squiggle off the porcelain, but damn. Four year old Randall would have loved these. 

It turns out Alex does, too. He spends his entire bath drawing on the tub and wall. And talking, but he loses steam pretty quick once his hair is washed and he is freshly scrubbed. 

The first yawn happens right after Randall rinses his hair. the second follows close behind as Hamish shows him how to draw stars, and after the third yawn Randall makes the executive decision to fish him out and get him into his pajamas. He protests but it loses its effect when he yawns yet again. 

He yawns when brushing his teeth, which Randall supervises with his hands on Alex’s sides because he is half-asleep and falling off the step-stool would be counterproductive to Randall’s ‘Protect My Child with My Life and See Him Into Adulthood’ protocol. So will cavities, but for being arely awake, Alex is remarkably thorough with his dental hygiene. The little song that plays from his toothbrush while he brushes probably helps - kids have so many cool things now, why don’t they make these for adults? How cool would it be to brush your teeth to the  _ Star Wars _ theme song or something? - but once the song ends and he spits, rinses, and deposits his toothbrush between Randall’s and Hamish’s, he sluggishly spins and holds his arms out to Randall. “Hold me, please?”

And how can Randall possibly say no to that? 

He picks Alex up and gets one tiny hand clutching weakly at the collar of his robe, the other resting over his chest as he carries him to bed, where Hamish has arranged Alex’s stuffed animals to look like they’re ready for bed, too, heads on the pillows and tucked under the covers. His thumb brushes over Randall’s scar and the reaction isn’t as intense as it is with Hamish, but he still feels him. Warm. Safe. Content like they’ve been doing this his whole life. Not even a trace of worry, fear, grief, nothing but peace. Just deep, steady breathing and a slow, relaxed heart beating over something like the whisper of a breeze over still water, slow and calm for now but heavy with the promise of wild waters come morning when Alex wakes up and takes on the day with even an ounce of the energy he had for today. 

“Looks like a party in here,” he murmurs to Alex as he settles him into bed and stretches out next to him as best as he can given this bed is Alex-sized, not Randall-sized

Alex nods with a quiet, “Mhmm.”

Hamish kneels on the floor, resting his chin on folded arms at the edge of the bed. “I had a lot of fun with you today, baby wolf.”

“Me, too,” Alex mumbles. 

It doesn’t take long for him to sink onto the deep kind of sleep that only comes from a day full of sunshine and adventures. Good adventures, hopefully they’re done with bad one for a while. And tomorrow he’ll have more adventures. Hamish canceled his lectures so who knows what kind of chaos and mischief these two will stir up. He can’t wait to hear about it for hours and hours tomorrow night when he gets home from work. 

He kisses Alex’s cheek, rubs it in with a nuzzle, and he really didn’t consider how he’d get out of this tiny bed without waking Alex up but he’s had years of practice extracting himself from a slumbering Hamish. He is a  _ pro _ at sneaking out of bed. He even manages to do it gracefully sometimes. At least it feels graceful. No one’s ever awake to see him do it so he can’t say for sure, but he probably looks cool. 

For this particular daring escape, all he has to do is roll onto his back and his leg automatically dangles off the edge of the bed for sheer lack of real estate, now it’s just a matter of getting his other foot on the ground, a little bit of a shimmy, engaging his core, and he’s up!

He waits for Hamish to look impressed, but he looks like he’s still processing what he just saw. Maybe he’s stunned by Randall’s grace and core strength, or maybe he just realized Randall has spent their entire lives together perfecting the art of getting out of bed without waking him up and now that he’s seen it in person, he’s moved beyond words. 

Nope, he was just powering up for a truly magnificent eye roll before giving Alex a kiss, adjusting his blankets, and pulling Randall towards the stairs. 

“Did you tell everyone no headlights when they come down the driveway?” Randall asks as he opens the front door. 

Hamish nods. “Are you getting dressed anytime soon or will you be staying in your robe all night?”

Randall frowns. “Why? They see me like this all the time, and we’re going to lay around and do nothing when everyone leaves, why put clothes on now?”

Hamish starts to argue but he stops because Randall is right. Holy shit, Randall is right, there is no argument for this, everyone is naked under their clothes, that is a standard fact. 

Hang on, what is that sound? It’s this weird squeaking, whistling noise,  _ oh _ , those are the gears in Hamish’s brain working overtime to come up with a clever response to Randall’s iron-clad, factual, inherently true statement. 

Finally Hamish sighs and flings himself backward onto the couch. “We should get Alex a robe.”

That is an obvious deflection, it’s like he’s not even trying. 

… but Alex really does need a robe. It’s a Knights tradition that, upon the choosing of a new champion, the pack gifts their new addition a robe. Hamish let Randall pick his out, but Randall chose for Lilith, Jack, and Gabrielle. Alex might not be a Knight, but he’s in the pack. That means he gets a robe. 

Randall swipes his phone out of his pocket and lays down on top of Hamish. “Do you think he’d want a  _ Paw Patrol _ one? Dinosaurs? Sharks?”

“Why are sharks a thing right now?” Hamish asks, angling Randall’s phone so he can see everything, too. 

“Maybe it’s from  _ Baby Shark _ . Aww, the penguins are cute, oh my god, the foxes! Hamish, how many can we get him?”

“Two, but one of them should be lighter for the summer. These all look like fleece.”

“How about ‘organic cotton’?” Randall clicks through the colors. “The green would look good on him. Let’s get that one and… geez, this is hard. You pick.”

Hamish goes back to the fluffy robes and finds one with lions and tigers and elephants. He adds it to their cart, along with the green one, and asks, “Good?”

“Good,” Randall confirms, smiling as Hamish orders them right then and there. 

Their friends all pull up around roughly the same time and file in quietly, settling into their usual spots - Jack and Alyssa on the new couch, Gabrielle at the bar, Lilith and Nicole on the old couch once Lilith shoves Randall’s and Hamish’s legs aside. 

“What’s up, buttercups?” Randall greets everyone as he sits up.

“Oh, not much,” Jack replies easily. “Hey, when were you going to tell us you killed Kepler?” 

Randall feels Hamish tense behind him even as he laughs and says, “That’s ridiculous. Randall didn’t kill Kepler.”

“I heard Marand on the phone.”

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. 

Lilith shrugs. “I don’t see how this is a problem.”

“It’s a problem because she was a high ranking member of the Gnostic Council,” Alyssa reminds her. “Randall, if it gets out -”

“No one is still looking for Kepler,” Gabrielle groans as she drops ice into a shaker.

“Her niece is getting a blue rose,” Alyssa argues. 

Shit, shit, shit, shit!

“Possibly,” Hamish corrects sharply. 

Alyssa scoffs. “Do you really think she won’t get in?”

Nicole turns to Randall. “Why did you kill her?”

“He did not kill her,” Hamish snaps. “Marand was lying. She was -”

“Stop,” Randall groans, grabbing Hamish’s arm and pulling it around his chest. “Stop, just.. everyone calm down before you wake up Alex. If the Order starts looking for her again, the less anyone knows the better, so stop asking.”

“We’re not asking,” Jack replies smoothly, “we’re telling you we know what happened. We just want to know why.”

“I know why,” Gabrielle announces, crossing the room to give Randall a cocktail glass full of a cloudy white concoction. “He did it to get Lilith back.”

It’s weird how seven pairs of eyes feels like a million and he somehow still feels Lilith’s eyes land on him the heaviest, staring into him harder than how tight Hamish’s arm is holding him. 

“We needed the blood of a witch to do the spell,” Randall says quietly, but his voice fills the room. “Nicole was going to sacrifice herself, so I memory dusted her and went after Kepler. I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t want anyone to try to talk me out of it or get in trouble. Hamish only knew because… he’s Hamish.”

“It was safer for everyone to keep it between us,” Hamish adds. “Do not  _ ever _ bring this up outside of this house again. Understood?”

Everyone nods. 

Lilith grabs Randall’s knee and gives him a weak smile. “You killed that bitch to get me back?”

  
“I’d do anything for you.” He nudges her with his toe. “‘Bitch’ is a really offensive word, you shouldn’t use it."

“You’re an idiot,” she whispers. She turns to Nicole and adds, “And so are you.”

Nicole smiles at her, eyes gleaming. “I just wanted to bring you home.”

“I would never want to live in a world without you in it,” Lilith insists, grabbing Nicole’s face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Lil.” 

Aw, those two are so sweet. Look at those lovebirds. Or maybe Randall shouldn’t because they’re really kissing now. A lot. Just going at it like Randall and Hamish aren’t sitting on the same couch as them. Nope, don’t mind them. Keep making out like this all happened yesterday and not several years ago. 

“Wow, that’s… OK, that’s happening.” Jack rubs his palms over his jeans and angles himself away from the overt display of affection, “I’m not saying you didn’t do the world any favors, Randall, but we need to stay ahead of this. Especially if Kepler’s niece starts asking questions.”

“We’ll just dust her or kill her, it’s fine,” Gabrielle insists as she clinks her glass against Randall’s. “Drink you, you look like you need it.”

He does need it. Whatever it is, oh hey, it’s  _ good _ . Zippy and tart. “Gabby, what is-”

“Corpse Reviver.”

He glares at her over the rim of the glass. “Not funny.”

“It was kind of funny,” Hamish mumbles. 

Randall would elbow him but he might spill his drink. He already has to protect it from the jostling thanks to the makeout session happening at the other end of the couch. 

Jack points to said makeout session and says to Randall, “Still not as bad as you and Hamish.”

“We had a lot more pent up angst and sexual frustration,” Randall points out. “Hey, what happened with Marand?”

“Nothing,” Jack sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as he slumps down on the couch. “I tried, Lilith tried, Vera tried, we got nothing. You’re the only one she’ll consider talking to.”

Grrreat. 

Randall sighs and glances up at Hamish. “I’ll go talk to her before work, I guess. And Vera.”

“She found a few books for you,” Alyssa says brightly. “You were right, Hamish, all of the necromancy books are bound in skin.”

Hamish scoffs. “So obvious…”

Randall needs another drink.


End file.
